New Communications Review

Technology Innovation Awards

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…CIRCLEUP!

The Challenge
In the past twenty years email has gone from a techie tool used by engineers, academics and scientists to the defacto method of communication for hundreds of millions of people in all walks of life. Instant messaging has been hot on its heels in the younger demographic and is now reaching critical mass even in the enterprise. With daily emails worldwide totaling somewhere between 50 and 62 billion messages, an almost unmanageable torrent of information flows every single day. Email has even overtaken telephony as a communication tool in the workplace (according to a recent DataMonitor study). While email is the most widely used tool in existence for knowledge management, it has proven to be relatively inefficient when it comes to group communication and information gathering it is great at one-way distribution but inefficient at round-trip management. Today, when you ask a question or send a request to a group you get back a blizzard of emails that often include random answers, distractions and extraneous details that complicate and delay the information gathering, collaboration and decision-making process.

The Ingenious Proposal
CircleUp decided to provide a free service for groups of any size to reduce information overload. Their vision is to offer a service that allows people to pose questions and gather needed information from their groups and get back a single, organized result/answer, and then to deliver these organized results containing answers, facts, files, links, photos and feedback in a format that can be acted on immediately and shared with the group. Unlike mailing lists and existing social networking sites today that even businesses are relying on, CircleUp enhances group communication by offering a tool that saves time, reduces message clutter and enhances productivity. CircleUp is for anyone who uses email, instant messaging or Facebook to communicate with real world groups they belong to, such as sports teams, classroom parent volunteers, volunteer coordinators, grassroots political organizers and leaders of faith-based organizations. Businesses also benefit from CircleUp, using the service for day-to-day management, allowing professional users to deliver significant productivity gains in email and group communications right from Outlook.

The Call
The arrival of CircleUp introduces a new way for people to efficiently and powerfully manage their group communications, putting an end to the back-and-forth that often goes along with it. CircleUp solves the dilemma associated with trying to obtain and organize information or feedback requested from groups of people. Instead of receiving a blizzard of individual responses, you get back a single, organized result that you can print, share, export or archive to help manage and make sense of all of those responses. CircleUp easily allows users to message their circle in three simple steps, using the QuestionWriter wizard to guide them through the process. First, users create and personalize the question they want to ask, then select a specific AnswerPattern that best reflects the results (responses) they???ll receive in return. The last step is to choose intended recipients by clicking the icon of an existing circle (add or remove individual members with a double-click) or by creating a new circle directly from the user???s address book. Results can be accessed from just about anywhere through email, Facebook profiles, newsfeeds, the CircleUp website, a CircleUp widget on a group website, or via RSS. They can then be directly exported to Microsoft Excel, PDF or even transferred to Outlook contacts and Google or Yahoo maps using microformats. With the integration of the free CircleUp service with Outlook, used by close to 18 million people worldwide, CircleUp extends its service to small business, home office and professional users to deliver significant productivity gains in email and group communications. Now businesses are using CircleUp to maximize their productivity and positively impact the bottom line. For example, businesses can CircleUp all of the employees to ask ???Will you be making a change to your benefits during open enrollment???? and get back an organized list of people who need the paperwork, instead of a ton of emails (and the risk that someone???s email might slip through the cracks). CircleUp 45 sales reps in the field to ask for suggestions on how to solve a thorny customer problem. Get back a single, organized result that can now be shared by everyone, and found quickly and easily for future reference.

The Success Story
Denis O’Malley is a youth soccer tournament organizer in Concord, California. O’Malley used CircleUp to streamline the process of receiving tournament t-shirt orders. Using CircleUp, he created an email poll to receive information on sizes and numbers of shirts from over 100 team captains - receiving the details of 1,800 t-shirts by sending out just two CircleUps. O???Malley was able to save hours by avoiding his old process of viewing each email and typing the results in by hand. Shannyn Flory, a real estate agent, based in Boise, Idaho uses CircleUp to get quick answers from her fellow agents on feedback on the houses that she is selling, such as its pricing, condition and likely interest to homebuyers. By using CircleUp, she reduces phone calls and paper - and it enables her to simply show other realtors the CircleUp results page, instead of having to compile emails and notes into a readable document. Flory has also used the service to compile agents’ recommendations for the best contractors in various areas, such as landscaping or roofing. CircleUp isn???t just another destination website. CircleUp is helping to define the new era of Email 2.0 where users can get the messages they need through the channels they want, and can manage the amount of information sent to any one channel to improve personal efficiency, reduce information overload and enhance group communication. Since launching at DEMO in Feb. 2007, CircleUp has demonstrated what Email 2.0 looks like — round-trip communications management, for free!

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…CLEANPIX!

Website: www.cleanpix.com

The Challenge
In most businesses today, digital files are still being delivered manually. This method requires burned discs, overnight couriers and increased hardware for storage and management, which causes increases in cost both monetarily and environmentally.

The Ingenious Proposal
Simply put, digital files should be delivered electronically. CleanPix created a digital file courier for logos and marketing materials. CleanPix wanted to reduce or even eliminate the use of burned discs (plastics), packaging (paper/plastic), overnight couriers (fuel) and the need for additional hardware (raw material) in the management and delivery of digital media files. CleanPix solves the current problem of communications managers having to spend too much time, effort and cost to put their company’s marketing materials into action. It is often difficult to find the right file, figure out what file format you need and how you are going to get it to the person who requested it. CleanPix gives you the right file, right format, right now!

The Call
Create a service that uses a collective use of hardware and software (ASP) for clients to manage and deliver digital media files. The service needed to be easy to use and require minimal technical skills by both the administrator and end user. The service does not require any special purchase of hardware or software. This immediately reduces plastics, packaging, fuel and raw materials consumption.

The Success Story
CleanPix has eliminated or greatly reduced the manual delivery of media files for its clients and increased their PR and marketing visibility worldwide. In the past 6 years they have recorded over 300,000 successful downloads for their clients. As an example, NYC & Co., a client since 2002, has approximately 2,500 downloads per month. The overall impact for the environment is huge.

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…VISIBLE TECHNOLOGIES!

Website: www.visibletechnologies.com

The Challenge
Consumer Generated Media (???CGM???) is the term that encompasses all social media content on the Internet authored by consumers. This content ranges from blogs, to social networks, consumer review sites, message boards, and videos. CGM represents the fastest growing segment of the Internet, with more than 1 million new articles of content posted online and in social communities everyday. Millions of people worldwide are sharing experiences about themselves and interacting with companies, brands, services, and products. For companies, these online conversations represent a new opportunity and challenge for brand monitoring, reputation management, word-of-mouth marketing, and consumer engagement.

The Ingenious Proposal
Enable companies to identify, monitor, listen, engage and influence what consumers are saying about their products, brands, or services online and in social media communities. Visible Technologies??? TruCast solution is the industry’s first comprehensive service for social media analysis and engagement enabling clients to track, analyze, and participate in CGM conversations in blogs, forums, social networks, and online communities. The TruCast solution monitors in excess of 70M sources of CGM and online content — like blogs, podcasts, videocasts, forums, discussion boards, and all major publicly available mainstream media. The TruCast solution is an enterprise software solution that is offered to clients as a software-as-a-service (???SaaS???) model. Clients pay an implementation and monthly recurring fee for the services — typically a 2-year engagement. Additionally, they have an a la carte model for basic brand monitoring outputs and reporting that can be provided pre-implementation of the full service offering.

The Call
Visible Technologies was founded in 2003 by a group of Seattle technology enthusiasts who had a vision of creating social media software solutions to empower individuals and enterprises. Through their TruCast and TruView solutions, Visible Technologies has catapulted interest in social media activation and engagement with their brand monitoring and online reputation management solutions. Visible Technologies also helps brands and individuals manage and protect their online reputations with its powerful TruView search engine solution.

The Success Story
In 2006, Visible Technologies formed a strategic partnership with WPP, one of the world’s largest communications firms. The two companies continue to collaborate to create technology-driven marketing and communication services to meet the needs of clients. For clients using Visible Technologies??? products, ROI can be measured by several key factors: the amount of data/content/posts collected, the amount of users that engage in conversations, identification and interaction with influencers, and the amount of time from comment to measurement. With Fortune 100 clients and individuals utilizing TruCast and TruView, Visible Technologies is quickly becoming the industry leader in the rapidly evolving new media environment.

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Nonprofit Communications Innovation Awards

NONPROFIT DIVISION, COMMUNICATIONS INNOVATION CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…DIRECT2HOUSING!

Website: www.direct2housing.org

The Challenge
Finding adequate housing in a large city can be challenging. Finding adequate supportive housing options is even tougher. Direct2Housing.org was created by the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) to assist all case managers, housing advocates, social workers and people in the metropolitan Chicago community, in locating housing resources and housing service providers.

The Ingenious Proposal
The only housing database of its kind nationwide, Direct2Housing fosters greater communication and collaboration among housing advocates in different agencies in order to provide the most consistent, highest-quality services to clients, and creates an environment where housing advocates share resources rather than compete for them. Direct2Housing is a FREE online tool for the community. Supportive Housing programs can register for a free username and password that will allow them to enter their program information. The general public can go to any computer with and Internet connection and do a free search for supportive housing options at the main page. The audience is the front line case managers and social workers who see clients who are in need of housing assistance. They can sit with their client and help them do a search for the supportive housing options that they may be eligible to apply for. Because Direct2Housing can be accessed at any computer with an Internet connection, the client is empowered to go to the library or a computer lab and search for information on their own if they can. The goal is to make the contact information, eligibiltiy criteria and application process for the entire broad range of supportive housing options transparent and accessible to the entire community.

The Call
The website allows users to view the contact information, application process and eligibility criteria for Supportive Housing Programs. The staff at these housing programs are able to easily update information about unit availability by simply filling out an online form and clicking “submit”. This allows for program information to be more transparent than ever before. When someone completes and submits the short registration form, the Direct2Housing administrator will screen the applicant to determine what kind of housing they provide and therefore, what kind of access rights they will be given. If an agency has a Housing Advocate on staff that develops relationships with Private Market Landlords, the Housing Advocate can use Direct2Housing to enter their Private Market landlord listings. They are given access rights to a password protected search engine that can only be viewed by other users who have “Housing Advocate” access rights. Homesharing is a program that aims to set up compatible matches between responsible adults who have extra space in their homes and those needing affordable housing to share expenses. Ideal participants are people who own their home or condo and have a room for rent. A Homesharing provider could also be a leaseholder who is looking for a roommate. Home Sharing Providers can use Direct2Housing to enter their Home Sharing Provider listings. They are given access rights to a password protected search engine that can only be viewed by other users who have “Home Sharing” access rights.

THE SUCCESS STORY
With limited staff time, AFC had only been able to encourage a small number of agencies to register for a username and password and then follow through with entering and updating their information. For this reason, AFC hired a Community Outreach Consultant to work out in the field, at Supportive Housing Program sites. Since January 2007 this employee has provided demonstrations of Direct2Housing for agency staff members, helped them register for a username and password, and taught them how to enter their agency information. In the first six months of 2007 this has resulted in an increase of supportive housing programs added to Direct2Housing of over 500%. This type of increase directly impacts the amount of transparent, available housing resources for all case managers, housing advocates, social workers, and community members.

Additional funds are needed to further increase awareness of Direct2Housing to the community. Distribution of posters, business cards and postcards began in Spring 2007. An ad campaign ran on the CTA Red Line trains in the summer of 2007 that significantly helped to inform the public, but it must be ongoing in order to be most effective. Training and education will be provided for all Housing Locators, Housing Advocates, Information and referral specialists and Landlords working to help connect homeless clients with resources and services. Direct2Housing is a copyright protected product that AFC owns. At this time Direct2Housing is only being used in the Metro Chicago area. It has potential to be purchased and utilized in other cities. In order for other cities to benefit from this community tool, training materials would need to be developed. The AIDS Foundation of Chicago is grateful for the opportunity to improve the Coordinated Housing Advocacy Program, improve the Direct2Housing community tool and better serve people in need of housing assistance.

NON-PROFIT DIVISION, COMMUNICATIONS INNOVATION CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…ENGINEER AID!

Website: www.engineeraid.com

The Challenge
Often in developing and disaster-hit regions there is a lack of appropriate skills and knowledge to allow continuous self-help development and there is a demand for skilled people, such as engineers, to provide advice and solutions to technical problems. Conventional development charities aim to meet this demand by sending volunteers abroad. This requires investing huge resources in travel costs and limits the pool of available personnel to those able or willing to travel for reasonable periods of time. This pool could be greatly widened to include engineers of all disciplines who wish to collaborate and solve problems if there was an effective gateway for communication between them and people in areas of need. EngineerAid believes that with the innovative use of digital collaboration technologies the benefits and reach of the development aid can be improved whilst reducing the carbon footprint and the resources required to send experts abroad.

The Ingenious Proposal
Provide a platform that facilitates the provision of engineering solutions to social development projects. The transfer of appropriate technical skills and knowledge between engineers in developed economies and people who work and live in less economically developed countries allows continuous self-help development in developing and disaster hit regions through effective digital collaboration technologies. Objectives of the program are: 1. Ensure that as far as possible the support given is appropriate and follows the principle of socio-economic and environmental sustainability. Improve the knowledge base of people in developing areas by promoting wider distribution of successful advice and solutions within communities by those who have already benefited. 2. Recruit and maintain an engineering volunteer base which is both technically capable and effective at ideas. 3. Provide a high level of accountability and reporting on their activities to all stakeholders in the charity but particularly those who give their time and donate their money. 4. Identify a continuous stream of development projects suitable for aid in the unique format we provide and developing increased interaction with other non-governmental organizations (NGO) to deliver sustained and long-term support. 5. Generate awareness among the engineering profession that there are opportunities to use their skills in a philanthropic way. Engineer Aid aims to provide a service with open access, giving simple, direct and timely advice required at any stage of infrastructure building in developing countries. EngineerAid works with communities (not limited to, but presently focusing on, Asia and Africa), who cannot access the technological expertise Engineer Aid provides. The solutions are provided by professional volunteer engineers working within public and private sector companies globally. EngineerAid works both independently and in partnership with other NGOs. We intend to continue building networks extending globally and provide a means of opening communication lines with like-minded organizations to compliment and improve each other???s services.

The Call
EngineerAid is currently providing remote solutions to technology problems in the less economically developed countries by providing a platform to engineers to communicate, collaborate and solve problems. The Concept and the Strategy: EngineerAid has been the first to successfully facilitate useful and meaningful direct communication between engineers in developed economies and people who work and live in developing economies. Our methodology champions empowerment, concentrating on knowledge transfer from professional engineers to disadvantaged communities and technical answers and advice is given directly to those who make enquiries. Local networks and self-help groups are strongly promoted. The Tools: Enquiries or engineering problems are logged via a tailor-made online intelligent system, and after careful matching are allocated to individuals with a particular expertise in the relevant area. Experts are then able to use online collaboration and communication tools authored and tailored to provide responses to the projects. This integrated network allows specific engineering problems to be translated and reviewed on a large scale and the solutions are provided by professional volunteer engineers working within public and private sector companies/organizations around the world. Transferral of the information takes place in a multitude of formats, languages and time zones but the concept remains the same: open communication channels between our target communities and professional engineers, providing simple, timely and direct help. As all communication between engineers and enquirers is carried out online, expense in terms of time and cost is minimized making EngineerAid entirely sustainable as well as environmentally friendly. In addition to this, the collaboration between the expert knowledge of engineers and the local knowledge of enquirers means that the work we do has a long-term, lasting impact for the communities we help. The Components/Guiding Principles: Technology Requirements - Human interaction and communication technology for the end users, collaborative tools to enable engineers to design sustainable solutions, dedicated software for transmitting and sharing the information, and managed hardware and software (dedicated servers and accompanying software). Enterprise Structure: Non-profit management, Board of Directors, and General Manager. 4 primary team manager roles: IT & Communications, Projects, Fundraising and Marketing.

The Success Story
EngineerAid???s services are supported by professional engineers, each with an average work experience of 10 years (amounting to a commitment of 474 hours of engineering support per month, the equivalent of ??569,000 per annum of engineering resource) thus ensuring the highest standard of expertise available within the sector. Their work with other NGO???s - developing strategic partnerships, networking with grassroots organizations and providing support to developmental projects, clearly indicates the quality of delivery of our services. Additionally, EngineerAid carries out regular monitoring and review by using knowledge based systems to ensure that enquiries are answered promptly and that, where necessary, they adapt to the changes in demand. They have been able to provide aid that has an immediate impact on the target groups and have successfully supported over 50 projects worldwide in 2006-07, and the feedback they have received so far from their projects is extremely encouraging. “We are indebted to EngineerAid for their support and prompt advice. We hope to continue this partnership and develop a sustained model of support.” - Department of Forests and Environment, India. ???You won’t believe me how much of help your reply is to us here!” - Duetsi Khadro, Indonesia.

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Nonprofit Division Awards

NONPROFIT DIVISION

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…THE AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION!

Website: www.americanheart.org, www.goredforwomen.org

The Challenge
One humid August morning, 46-year-old Nancy McKesson collapsed in the elevator on the way to her office. She was a vegetarian, took an at-work yoga class, and cheered at her son???s softball games on the weekends. Nancy never thought a heart attack would happen to her. In fact, she never even considered it. Despite the fact that heart disease is women???s #1 killer, only 13 percent of women in 2004 viewed it as a health threat. This alarming statistic led the American Heart Association (AHA), a nonprofit association that aims to protect people of all ages and ethnicities from the ravages of heart disease and stroke, Edelman, a global public relations firm, and other partners to initiate the Go Red for Women (GRFW) campaign to raise awareness of heart disease risks and prevention. AHA hoped that as a result of the team???s efforts, hundreds of thousands of American women like Nancy would join GRFW, and achieve awareness that would lead to an average of 14 more years with their families.

The Ingenious Proposal
Create the American Woman study, involving a national, in-depth look at women of all ages and ethnicities. The survey aimed to determine women???s habits and practices regarding protection against cardiovascular disease. The team learned that 73% of women understood that heart disease is a major threat and more than 75% were interested in actively preventing it in themselves and other women. However, because there was no way for women to know, feel and understand their personal risk, it was difficult for them to internalize the message. AHA needed to create a tool that would alert women to cardiovascular disease risks, including problematic cholesterol, blood pressure, and body mass index (BMI) numbers. In the meantime, 2006 was witnessing an explosion in American consumers leveraging the Internet to research health information. According to Harris Interactive, 80% of U.S. adults were searching for health information online, representing a total of 136 million people. Additional 2006 demographic research by Nielsen/Netratings indicated that nearly 57% of these Internet health consumers were female, and a large majority was over the age of 25. Edelman and the AHA conducted another research initiative to review women???s online activities and priorities, from which we determined that nearly 40% go to the Internet first for heart health information and most want to receive information on healthy living and nutrition. These findings validated the results of the prior studies and served as the basis for the GRFW Web site and e-communications content. Objective 1: As women???s heart health had become AHA???s largest and most important cause, AHA???s primary goal was to accelerate awareness of the grassroots Go Red campaign, resulting in a long-term goal of 500,000 program registrations. Objective 2: While the public was familiar with the AHA, the Go Red movement remained hidden in the shadow of its parent organization. AHA desired to increase the visibility of Go Red (via millions of online and offline impressions) so that its standalone brand and messaging became readily identifiable. Objective 3: Create automated mechanisms that allow women to take active steps to prevent heart disease. Objective 4: Actively engage stakeholders with the authority to influence women???s heart health. GRFW honed in on women ages 35-54 because these women are most at risk for future heart disease. GRFW aimed to motivate them to alter their lifestyles with respect to diet, exercise, and access to physicians. Also, in order to effectively reach the critically important Hispanic audience, the plan included the use of Spanish-language communication materials. Based on the research, the team concluded that the most effective way to achieve their objectives with these audiences was to center the campaign around the core message that women should personally take part in the fight against heart disease and ???Love Their Hearts.??? Communication strategies involved: Sharing GRFW messages among women through a new, interactive Web site and an easy-to-use assessment tool that served as a call-to-action; saturating national and local media markets with GRFW messaging; and reaching out to influential people (media, corporations, politicians, health professionals, etc.) to generate buzz.

The Call
A combination of online and offline tactics was executed to spread the word about GRFW to the target audience and influencers. The standalone, bilingual Web site, GoRedForWomen.org, was friendly and sophisticated, and evoked the look and feel of the GRFW brand. The content was based on what the research determined the target was looking for: informative, personal, and emotionally engaging health-related material. It included heart health facts, real-world, video case studies, an e-commerce engine for purchasing GRFW products, and most importantly, a GRFW Heart Checkup. This risk assessment tool, which was only possible using the algorithm capabilities of the Internet, allowed women to take the test and know their 10-year risk of heart disease. A woman could print out the results and take them to her physician and share the tool with loved ones. A monthly e-newsletter included heart-healthy tips, events and activities, news, recipes, and promotions. Four national partnerships (Macy???s, Pfizer, Bayer, and Pacificare) were leveraged online with contextual advertising and member discounts. GRFW???s online presence was supported by search engine marketing, webcasting, partner development and traditional PR tactics including: National Wear Red Day: Thousands of corporations and hundreds of cities participated by going red. This could mean local news anchors wearing red or companies serving heart healthy red foods in the cafeteria. Cities Go Red: Landmarks across the nation glowed with the color red, including the Empire State Building and Niagara Falls. Public Service Announcement: GRFW messages lit up the jumbotrones in Times Square. Media Outreach: We conducted local market broadcast and radio tours with national spokespeople, national pitched and paid placements and podcasts. GRFW was seen on The Today Show, The Early Show, Live! With Regis and Kelly, the Wall Street Journal, and Ladies Home Journal. Rhapsody in Red Event and Live Webcast: Taking place during New York Fashion Week at the New York Public Library and hosted by Sigourney Weaver, the event engaged influencers, healthcare professionals and media in the movement. Medical Community Outreach: Pfizer???s sales force distributed 10,000 physician toolkits, while Bayer launched an online CME course to familiarize 40,000 pharmacists with AHA???s guidelines.

The Success Story
The GRFW campaign is still underway, but has already measurably increased awareness and action to prevent heart disease. The new site has registered 450,000 online members, 90% of its long-term goal of 500,000. These members receive information, on health tips and events to help prevent heart disease. The GRFW campaign generated over 1.8 billion online and offline impressions. The GoRedForWomen.org site was re-launched and achieved nearly 9 million hits in its first month alone, tripling the total traffic of the old site. In a single month???s distribution, 75,000 members opened the e-newsletter. Since the launch, subscription has increased by 75% and open rates have doubled. More than 130,000 people have launched the GRFW Heart Checkup tool. The average length per user session since launching the tool has risen from three minutes thirty seconds to four minutes and ten seconds. 12,800 companies and 150 national landmarks participated in National Wear Red Day and Cities Go Red. In 2006, Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced the HEART for Women Act, the first-ever federal legislation designed to address women???s health.

NONPROFIT DIVISION, OTHER CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…GINA FOR MISSING PERSONS FOUNDATION!

Website: www.411Gina.org

The Challenge
Singer-songwriter Gina Bos disappeared on October 17, 2000 after performing at a pub in Nebraska. Gina’s story had no scandal or suspects, no hook needed to get national attention. Gina just vanished. ???Gina???s sister, singer-songwriter Jannel Rap, could not live with herself if she did not do something to create ways to gain attention for missing children and adults who vanish without a trace or hook.??? In 2001 Jannel organized GINA, bringing together recording artists from all over the country in an effort to raise awareness of all the people who go missing every year.??? GINA???s mission is to bring together media agencies and artists that create an avenue of hope and awareness that can guide people whose family members become missing. 850,000 missing persons police reports are filed each year and we only hear and see a handful of stories. Working to create media hooks while finding and creating alternative ways to get the attention of the media is the ongoing challenge.

The Ingenious Proposal
Janel founded GINA for Missing Persons FOUNDation in an effort to educate the public about missing persons by utilizing entertainment. Goal: to find and bring home missing people by creating alternative ways to gain attention for the them by utilizing entertainment, events and media outlets. To create events all over the world that are earmarked to gain the most attention possible in the media and beyond. Major recording artists, TV and Movie personalities and media will eventually use their spotlight to aid missing persons local to their events and or their national exposure. To continue to create a website that is an information and education hub for the world???s missing and assists the families of the missing with resources to make their search easier.

The Call
The Look, Listen and Pass it On CD/DVD: Recording artists donate their music or concert footage to be placed on a CD or DVD. The faces of selected missing are placed on the CD/DVD, which are given away at events. GINA is asking people to look, listen and pass it on. GINA Sessions Webcast: Artists perform monthly and profile different missing persons on a live webcast. People are asked to call the local authorities if they have any information about the missing persons profiled. GINA Concerts: artists all over the world earmark their events to profile missing people local to their events. The press usually cover these events and so the local missing person receives press that they normally would not receive. The Squeaky Wheel Tour: A 19-day tour, involving 100’s of artists internationally in an all-out effort to gain attention for the missing persons local to their events. FINDing Gina: a documentary about Jannel’s band, Clementine, on the SWT Tour performing with other artists in an effort to gain attention for the missing via a webcast, press, events and ultimately the airing of the 22-week series. www.411Gina.org: Extensive website with resources for the families of the missing that profiles their missing loved ones.

The Success Story
To date, over 140 missing people profiled have been found. This has been a collective effort by the families of the missing, media, artists, other nonprofit organizations, law enforcement and volunteers. The ache that never goes away is not knowing what has happened to your loved one. Many families live with this ache for decades. The natural grieving process is on hold. Bringing their loved one home gives them a chance to begin to grieve and heal.

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Nonprofit Mobile Media Award

NONPROFIT DIVISION, MOBILE MEDIA CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…HUMANITARIAN EMERGENCY LOGISTICS PREPAREDNESS - H.E.L.P.!

Website: www.disasterlogistics.org

The Challenge
Humanitarian Emergency Logistics Preparedness, Inc. (HELP) is a non-profit humanitarian relief organization devoted to meeting the needs of the many victims of natural and man-made disasters on a global basis. They target medical/health concerns in disasters and other areas of chronic medical need. Challenges they address range from disaster trauma (ie; blunt trauma, wounds, etc.) to HIV/AIDS, TB, Elephantiasis-Filaria, malnutrition-related disease, water-borne Illness, insect infestation disease and much more. These are areas where often times medical emergency crews are non-existent due to disaster (they themselves are dead), likewise their facilities are often damaged or destroyed or they are located in chronic needs areas where no one else wants to help. Additionally, in many third-world locations local medical staff are typically under-educated and under-equipped with no access to advanced medical resources.

The Ingenious Proposal
HELP wants to deploy more of their Doc-in-a-Box mobile telemedicine clinics and to expand their web-based community of volunteer physicians and hospitals around the globe. These clinics enable local physicians to have modern state-of-the-art facilities and expertise “looking over their shoulder” thus providing the latest technology and insight to the remotest regions of our world. Telemedicine utilizes broadband satellite communications, the Internet and cellular technologies to allow field personnel in real-time to diagnose critical patient information with the assistance of medical specialists anywhere in the world. The output of electronic stethoscopes, ultrasound imagery and other medical equipment are sent instantaneously to a staff of collaborating doctors. Additionally, the collaborating medical professional can see and speak to patients half a world away. HELP has proven this effective from a HELP mobile medical clinic in the remotest rural areas of a tsunami relief camp in India (a 9 hour train ride from the nearest airport) via satellite to medical professionals in Arizona and Florida. This was done live with the physicians speaking - through Christian missionary interpreters - to the patients and hearing their digital heart and lung sounds. As a result, doctors were able to develop accurate diagnoses and, through the HELP medical teams, provide treatment to tsunami victims who still to this day, have no other medical care available to them. Four hundred people showed up to the first of numerous clinics conducted by HELP during their most recent visit. ???It???s always a challenge to triage large numbers like this as we can only afford to get the most extreme cases in front of doctors via the satellite link we were paying $13 per minute to use,??? said HELP President Randy Roberson. ???We hope to return again soon and bring more badly needed medicines and other resources,??? he added. HELP has been working to address these needs in the third-world. Their target audience in India alone (where they have been very focused since the Dec 2004 Tsunami) is nearly 1.5 billion in number. They have also worked in Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Colombia, Turkey, El Salvador, Albania and Thailand. They have requests for help this year in Kenya, Darfur, Iraq, the Philippines as well as their ongoing efforts in India.

The Call
Obtain funding through various grants and technology awards (see http://www.netsquared.org/blog/britt-bravo/h-e-l-p-s-international-telemedicine-humanitarian-emergency-mobile-medical-clinic-network-interview-randy-rober) to enable HELP to supply 250 of the Doc-in-a-Box clinics to areas of chronic need in Africa, India, South America, the Philippines and American Indian Reservations. In addition, they will build their web 2.0 portal to accomplish three important tasks that not only provide better implementation of the telemedicine network to our clinics but also will provide sustainability long into the future. 1. Secure a web portal for physicians and hospitals to link to the mobile clinics. This will include complete video conferencing with all the various medical peripheral devices attached and displayable. Create integrated databases for ultrasound, x-ray and other imaging as well as audio files of digital heart and lung sounds, 2. Obtain additional secure portals through which the public and corporate sponsors can see the latest photos, videos and reports from the disaster locations. They will also be able to quickly and easily build their own fund-raising pages where they can invite friends to support the cause and track the effectiveness of their efforts. Corporate sponsors will be able to include their own corporate branding so the pages virtually represent what “XYZ Corporation” is doing to help with this disaster or chronic area of need. 3. There will be complete current financials displayed live 24/7 on the site that shows how every penny is spent. A main critical objective of HELP as grow to the next level is to be the most transparent non-governmental organization (NGO) on the planet.

The Success Story
Not only do these clinics provide increased expertise to be transmitted to the disaster field, they also present an outstanding opportunity to provide “tele-mentoring” to medical teams in the field. This will enable increased abilities on an ongoing basis as well as the help that is needed in times of extreme crisis. This offers a perfect example of “A hand up, not a handout” to third world countries and their people. It also gives physicians in the US and other highly developed countries the opportunity to make a difference overseas. In doing so H.E.L.P.’s experience is that many find an equally significant change in their own lives. Project case histories will be tracked in the databases for ongoing review by foundations and other support mechanisms. 100% of public support will go to the projects with nothing being deducted. Reports required from field staff (complete with photos and/or video) will be constantly posted on each clinic???s blog for public review. This will provide complete accountability of the clinic’s productivity. This will also be tied to routine briefs from the various physicians who support these clinics via their telemedicine link.

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Nonprofit Community Awards

NONPROFIT DIVISION, COMMUNITY CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…THE KUBATANA TRUST OF ZIMBABWE!

Website: http://www.kubatana.net

The Challenge
Zimbabwe has an extremely repressive media environment where most forms of communication are state controlled. The sharing of information is a fundamental human right. The Kubatana Trust of Zimbabwe desired a way to address issues of censorship and isolation.

The Ingenious Proposal
Kubatana decided to create an online community for Zimbabwean activists. The Kubatana web site came into being after the creators experienced how useful the Internet can be in political campaigning and how the non-governmental organization (NGO) sector in Zimbabwe needed information and communications technologies (ICT) strengthening. Kubatana focused on using a wide range of interventions, such as establishing a highly regarded information portal (www.kubatana.net), email newsletters, regular electronic activism campaigns, SMS alerts, the sharing of audio files, and the blogging community. Kubatana???s program goals include: making civic and human rights information on Zimbabwe accessible on the Internet in an aggregated form - helping the NGO/non-profit community in Zimbabwe to become more accessible through publishing fact sheets for each participating NGO on the Kubatana web site. This facility gives small pressure groups the opportunity to be a part of the digital global community - encourage a greater professionalism in Internet publishing in the non-profit sector - keeping Zimbabweans from all walks of life who have access to email and the Internet informed of their rights and other issues related to social justice - exploring the innovative and integrated use of new media; for example, using mobile phones to solicit feedback from their community and then publishing the response on their website or blog to encourage broader debate. Please view http://kubatanablogs.net/kubatana/?p=201 to read more - counter state propaganda by making objective civic and human rights information available - encouraging citizen mobilization and participation through notification of events, public meetings and protests.

The Call
A questionnaire was developed which was completed by a large number of NGOs. The Kubatana NGO community now hosts over 240 NGOs. A mock-up of the Kubatana home page was created and the founders of Kubatana went to many different NGOs to get their buy-in for the concept. The Kubatana web site was created using an Access Database and ASP. Other products used include Dreamweaver, HTML editing software, Fireworks and Mailman runs the mailing lists. Kubatana audio files are created using Wavepad and Audacity. The Kubatana SMS initiatives use Frontline SMS. The Kubatana blog is a Word Press blog on a Linux system. The Kubatana project has the following staff: Creative Director: Bev Clark (founder),Technical and Financial Manager: Brenda Burrell (founder), Amanda Atwood: Information Officer and New Projects, Dennis Nyandoro: Front Office and Logistical Support.

The Success Story
Kubatana has become one of Africa??? s most recognized web sites providing accurate and respected information. Kubatana???s email subscriber list currently includes over 4000 people, the majority of whom are Zimbabweans. One of their outreach tactics is placing inspiring advertisements in the press, although some of their ads have been banned by the Zimbabwe government. Over 240 Zimbabwean NGOs are in their community. Zimbabwean organizations as well as regional and international media and human rights organizations also use Kubatana???s information on a regular basis. Kubatana???s work has been integral in keeping information flowing. Kubatana makes human rights and civic education information accessible from a centralized, electronic source. It is also worth mentioning that the Kubatana project is possibly more impressive because it has been entirely conceptualized and implemented by women, who are generally marginalized in the area of information communication technologies in Africa. The Kubatana web site is cited as a resource by many different institutions and is used by a variety of local, regional and international journalists. Feedback indicates that Kubatana provides a vital service in a country where its citizens struggle to access information. Kubatana has creatively kept information flowing in this challenging environment. What is worth noting on this point is that the Kubatana project is run from inside Zimbabwe whereas the majority of information projects on Zimbabwe are external. This gives Kubatana added credibility and respect. Kubatana has been short-listed for the Hafkin Prize. The Kubatana project has won the award for most innovative ICT project at Highway Africa and was short-listed for the Yeoman Local Content Award. These are specific indications and acknowledgement of Kubatana???s impact.

NONPROFIT DIVISION, COMMUNITY CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…THE GAY MEN???S HEALTH CRISIS!

Website: http://www.gmhc.org

The Challenge
The fundamental issue addressed by the Gay Men???s Health Crisis (GMHC) media project is the continued increase of HIV rates among young men of color who have sex with men (YMCSM). [Please go to http://gmhc.org/about/releases/070912.html for more information.] Furthermore, social marketing that targets this population is seriously lacking and is characterized by: a) an overall lack of YMCSM representation in media in general; b) a lack of quality public service announcements (PSAs) with HIV prevention messages targeting YMCSM; and, c) a lack of culturally competent social marketing and messaging that truly speaks to YMCSM. This project attempts to stimulate discourse in communities of YMCSM around HIV/AIDS by providing relevant and engaging HIV prevention and health messages to this population.

The Ingenious Proposal
Reach YMCSM who are at high risk for HIV transmission via online venues where men meet other men. Examples of these online venues are manhunt.net, blogs by YMCSM, brutha4brutha.com, YouTube, and MySpace, and other sites popular among young men. Data shows a steady increase in the number of YMCSM accessing the Internet, thereby continually increasing the opportunities for reaching this particular audience through this medium. The overall goal of GMHC???s media project is to reduce the number of HIV infections among YMCSM. More specifically, the media project aims to: Raise awareness and increase the discourse around HIV in online communities of YMCSM; Produce quality streaming media in the form of culturally competent PSAs that speak to YMCSM; Directly engage community members in the production of social marketing with messages directed at their own community; Engender discussion around HIV and sexual health among community members; Increase knowledge of HIV/AIDS among YMCSM; Raise awareness of attitudes and beliefs around HIV; Build the capacity of YMCSM to communicate effectively around; Build the capacity of YMCSM to produce PSAs with effective HIV prevention messages; Engage websites in participating with the dissemination of HIV prevention.

The Call
GMHC???s media project, Raw Cut Productions, was designed as a community-level, peer-based, social marketing, HIV intervention. The peer-to-peer model is designed on a base of strong community participation and uses ongoing community participation as its core tenet in creating socio-culturally relevant PSAs. One major component of the intervention is the workshop/production cycle, which comprises the following parts: 6-10 YMCSM are recruited from online venues where men go to meet other men. These participants attend an 8-part workshop by the end of which they produce a complete PSA. In the workshop, participants learn HIV basics, discuss how HIV impacts their lives, learn how to create effective social marketing messages, and then proceed hands-on through the entire process of developing, filming, editing, and producing a short PSA with an HIV prevention message. The PSA is then distributed to a variety of participating online venues, such as the ones from which the participants were recruited. The filming of the PSAs is accomplished using mostly hand-held digital video cameras. Editing and final production is done on a Mac computer running Final Cut Pro. The PSAs are distributed as QuickTime and Window Media files. Rawcutproductons.com, a companion to the workshop/production cycle, is the eponymous website dedicated to showcasing the PSAs produced by the project. Where the website really shines, however, is the feature it offers visitors to the site for submitting their own comments about each PSA. This provides another layer of opportunity for community dialogue and interaction around the issues addressed by the PSAs. Finally, the spirit of Raw Cut Productions expresses: democratic, organic, creative thinking process, idea exchange, alternative to commercial media. Please visit rawcutproductions.com to see all the PSAs produced by the project and the visitor comments that have been submitted on the website.

The Success Story
GMHC assesses the success of their media project in a number of ways. The website of the project provides them with ongoing quantitative and qualitative data in the form of visitor comments as well as statistical data that include demographic information, frequency of hits, and participating online venues where visitors originally click to see the PSAs. (User comments can be seen on rawcutproductions.com). GMHC hired an independent social marketing consultant to evaluate the project. The goal of the study was to assess the target audience???s connection and response to the PSAs and messaging, as well as evaluate the experience of the program participants. Research strategies included focus groups with YMCSM to assess the effectiveness of the PSAs and interviews with program staff and workshop participants. This evaluation found: An overwhelmingly positive experience for workshop participants, a real sense of urgency and need for pieces that speak to YMCSM, a usefulness of recruiting YMCSM to speak to their peers, and a social component of building a community drawing on participants??? strengths. The main challenge is that the project is resource intensive; there is a short period of time in which to complete a vast amount of learning and work.

NONPROFIT DIVISION, COMMUNITY CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…HEALTHCARE INFORMATION AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS SOCIETY (HIMSS)!

Website: http://www.himss.org/

The Challenge
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is the healthcare industry’s membership organization exclusively focused on providing leadership for the optimal use of healthcare information technology (IT) and management systems for the betterment of healthcare. HIMSS is known throughout the industry for the quality education programs offered to members and to any healthcare professional. HIMSS holds many international conferences, with the U.S. Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition being the largest health information technology conference in the country and HIMSS??? main revenue source. HIMSS member research indicated a strong interest in and preference for online educational opportunities. Many healthcare professionals, from clinicians to health IT managers, do not have the budget or time to attend a conference in person. Thus, the introduction of a virtual conference seemed a logical next step for the organization

The Ingenious Proposal
Create a virtual conference in addition to the in-person conference. HIMSS wanted to enable the expansion of educational offerings to the online venue to address the needs of members and other healthcare professionals who cannot attend in person, and provide the ability of members and others interested in the electronic medical records industry to visit with vendors throughout the year instead of just once at the annual conference. Their goals were to: 1. Acquire 51 exhibitors to participate in the May 2007 HIMSS Virtual Conference & Expo; 2. Get 3,000 registrants and 1,500 attendees (with 500 paid attendees) for the educations sessions at the Virtual Conference & Expo - 1,000 non-paid attendees represent the need to account for the fact that approximately 50% of registrants do not attend; 3. To raise awareness for HIMSS??? new educational offering, the HIMSS Virtual Conference & Expo; 4. To generate interest and excitement about the conference to ensure attendance and exhibitor goals; 5. To successfully market the concept, topics and content to audiences in a way that will demonstrate value and high quality leverage marketing to differentiate this product from other HIMSS educational offerings.

The Call
InXpo provided the technology infrastructure for the HIMSS Virtual Conference & Expo. Jeff Schmitt, Senior Manager, Education, managed the conference for HIMSS and led the team in all deliverables. This was an integrated conference with an integrated approach to setting up this meeting with HIMSS education, meeting services, marketing, communications, business development, and HIMSS??? publishing partner, MedTech Publishing, working as a team to put the conference on. HIMSS conducted pre- and post-conference research to ascertain the benefits of conducting a virtual conference, and then fulfilled those needs. The team met twice a month until about six weeks before the conference; then the meetings were weekly.

The Success Story
While not all objectives for attendance were met, the comments HIMSS received were positive. Those who did attend benefited, as noted in the post-survey comments. Holding a HIMSS Virtual Conference & Expo (VCE) twice a year is now part of the FY08 HIMSS Strategic Plan. Demographics of Attendees: There were 2175 total attendees with 59% HIMSS non-members and 41% members; 71% of attendees were not present at HIMSS07. Overall, the attendees??? worksite and professional level mirrored the attendees of the HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition. There were no outstanding differences. Electronic Survey Highlight: An electronic survey was sent right after the conference to all attendees. HIMSS received 135 completed surveys. Findings from the survey were very positive: Overall satisfaction for the VCE was rated good to excellent by 87%, 82% of respondents are planning to attend the November VCE, 87% had never attended an online conference prior to HIMSS VCE, 96% rated advance notification good to excellent, 81% rated pre-conference marketing materials good to excellent, 87% rated e-mail campaign good to excellent, 69% rated their satisfaction with the Daily Insider as good to excellent, 81% rated the Show Guide as good to excellent, and 74% rated the Attendee Guide as good to excellent. Most attendees heard about the VCE through e-mail, an online ad or newsletter. 91% of attendees stated that they would like to learn about future VCEs through e-mail.

NONPROFIT DIVISION, COMMUNITY CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…INFOGROUP INTERNATIONAL!

Website: Pending

The Challenge
There are currently conflict areas in Africa, especially east of the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Sudan???s Darfur region, where many abuse cases and human rights violations have been registered. Infogroup International desired a way to connect people across the continent and around the world, and help them find inspiration, education and information, and get involved with human rights activities, programs, and initiatives locally, regionally and globally.

The Ingenious Proposal
Develop a website and program that will serve as a source of information regarding human rights for people in Africa, especially in the conflict areas, and others globally. The website will allow people to participate in educational programs, and share ideas, experiences, and information. It will help people explore and better understand human rights and its impact on development and social and cultural issues in their community, while at the same time learn about the communities of other groups, and build a local, regional and global network of people committed to advocating human rights issues. Their goals are: 1. To increase human rights information dissemination amongst people and encourage them to respect and advocate human rights and related issues in their local community and across the continent. 2. To create a positive change towards human rights issues among people in east of Democratic Republic of Congo and in Sudan???s Darfur region. 3. To provide a forum for discussing human rights issues and exchanging ideas, videos, and information, and promoting effective local, regional and global networking.

The Call
The project will be developed using a participatory process that brings together individuals, human rights activists, educators and organizations from across the continent. During the expansion process, the project coordinators will choose Regional Officers at different conflict zones and community focal points who will coordinate the volunteers and activities in their areas, and liaise with the Regional Officer and the Project Coordinator at project headquarters. The organization will also benefit from the expertise of a variety of advisors, as well as a strong network of human rights activists, specialists in human rights, media partners, and educators. The main tool of information dissemination will be the website, which will be developed in many languages spoken in Africa, such as English, French, Arabic, Swahili and other major dialects, to reach a broader audience. The website will host human rights events, and have educational programs, poems, songs, illustrations, opportunities, a chat forum, a mailing list, registration options, contacts, music, videos and documentaries. They will create chapters for various communities committed to advocating for human rights activities and information dissemination. They will establish a global network with other organizations, youth groups, non-governmental agencies, and the media. They plan to launch regional and national programs, and be present at local, national, and global human rights events.

The Success Story
The official website has not been launched yet, but there are procedures in place to evaluate the success of the project once it does launch. Primarily qualitative in nature, the formative evaluation will be conducted through interviews and open-ended questionnaires, and will assess the impact of the project in different regions. Volunteers will be surveyed monthly about the training program and materials, and the content and usability of the site, to provide feedback for the ongoing improvement of the operation of the project. The Project Evaluator will meet regularly with project staff to share findings from the formative evaluation effort. Periodic reports will be prepared that identify the major findings of the formative evaluation and how they have been used to improve the project???s operation.

NONPROFIT DIVISION, COMMUNITY CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…WIKIKLESIA PRESS!

Website: http://www.wikiklesia.org

The Challenge
Book publishing enterprises operate generally as “top down” organizations guided by market forces and narrow stakeholder interests. How can today’s dominant publishing paradigm be expanded to include social benefit and broader global participation? Can global-virtual (”online”) communities be leveraged to assume roles traditionally dominated by centralized and/or for-profit publishing interests? Can the quality and time-to-market of traditional publishing models be maintained, or improved upon, by tapping the rapidly growing pool of collective virtual intelligence? The challenge is to create a new publishing paradigm not bounded by traditional business models - to leverage the resources of global-virtual community into a self-organizing, self-sustaining book publishing enterprise guided by shared ideals rather than profit or narrow/special interest.

The Ingenious Proposal
Create a leaderless, sustainable anthological book publishing enterprise focusing on a wide variety of religious-themed issues establishing (1) effective incentive for recurrent projects and (2) controls to maintain high literary quality. This new publishing model should exhibit emergent/chaordic properties, leveraging chaotic attributes of global-virtual community towards viral growth. A primary goal is sustainability with minimal structure - to move insular religious communities towards decentralized cooperation - to launch a self-perpetuating “nomadic” business model: raising money for charities - giving voice to emerging writers and artists - generating a continuous stream of new anthologies covering all manner of relevant topics. The project will be considered a success if (1) no long-term centralized leadership is required, (2) the franchise changes hands as new projects are created, (3) new projects emerge and self-organize based on the strength of broad-based collective ideas rather than narrowly focused institutional agendas, and (4) money is generated for charity with each new project. Wikiklesia Press serves a broad Christian/religious audience worldwide. Target demographics will vary with each new volume (e.g., women’s issues in religion, technology’s impact on religion, new expressions in global ecclesiology, etc.).

The Call
Two initial facilitator-editors employed their weblogs to announce the formation of the “Wikiklesia Project” and issue a call for authors. The topic chosen for the first anthology was “the impact of technology on religion;” specifically, the impact of virtual communication on global Christianity. The facilitator-editors received roughly fifty chapter proposals/abstracts within a two-week period. Roughly forty chapter proposals were accepted for publication. Of the finished chapters received, two were rejected for substandard literary quality, as determined by the facilitator-editors. Virtually all of the authors had some manner of existing virtual presence, such as personal web sites, weblogs, e-zines, and targeted e-mailing lists. Authors publicized the book, along with their chapters, using the virtual tools available to them. The book was highly publicized both pre-release and post-release. Author-volunteers assembled chapters into a finished “e-book” in PDF format. One author, an artist, provided original cover artwork. The e-book was released for sale on www.lulu.com. A paperback version of the book was released a few weeks later and sold via “POD” (purchase on demand) on lulu.com.

The Success Story
The first Wikiklesia paperback volume was just released (11 Sep 07) and has sold over 200 units to date (22 Sep 07). It is far too early to evaluate success based on sales (all of which goes to charity), nor are sales the primary metric by which we are measuring success of this project. We are meeting all goals outlined above, specifically, (1) a distributed, leaderless enterprise has been created authors from many divergent sectors of global Christianity are working together towards a common goal, (2) a second project has been initiated by a new team of facilitator-editors, lending weight to the goal of sustainability without centralization, (3) a high level of editorial/literary quality has been achieved, (4) over $1,000 has been raised for charity in a short period of time, (5) emerging writers, working alongside seasoned professional authors (Michael Lissack, Scot McKnight, Rex Miller, etc.), have gained a high visibility platform for their voice. As new Wikiklesia anthologies are released, we believe that the viral nature of the Internet will, over time, propel Wikiklesia into focus as a more socially-conscious alternative to traditional publishing models, while opening new doors of ecumenical cooperation and partnership. The second volume of the Wikiklesia Project is currently underway. A new group of facilitator-editors are preparing to announce their project, a survey of global Christian alternative/emerging faith communities.

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Nonprofit Blog Awards

NONPROFIT DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…THE CENTER FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES!

Website: http://www.groundviews.org

The Challenge
Promoting progressive communications within and between communities WITHIN cycles of violence and a context of gross human rights abuse, Groundviews (www.groundviews.org) aims to further the impact of citizen journalism (CJ) in peace building and conflict transformation. Groundviews was the first of its kind in Sri Lanka, a country wrecked by violent conflict for over 25 years. It???s ability to feature content that questions the status quo and highlight voices rarely featured in traditional media has earned its Editor and his family death threats and public abuse, but importantly, forged best practices on editorializing and expanding the understanding and use of CJ to address violent conflict. Groundviews and its related sites, VOR Radio and Vikalpa, form a CJ eco-system that is challenging polity and traditional society through simple, personal and compelling stories. While CJ examples are aplenty, Groundviews is the only one set up in violent conflict to address the same.

The Ingenious Proposal
Feature stories via a blog that are vital pegs of hope, diversity and coexistence. They are those that will possibly never make it to mainstream media. Ordinary citizens, weary of violence, will write them. Artists, human rights and media activists, academics, young bloggers and thinkers, none of them with any journalism background or training, will write them. However, there is no guarantee that it will foster a new social movement in support of peace, when to do so is to risk one???s life. There is no guarantee it will secure peace and support real world conflict transformation initiatives. There is no guarantee that hate speech will not take over the timbre of online debate. Ironically, the more Groundviews is successful in fostering new voices in support of peace, the more it will be a target of concerted attacks to prevent it from growing further. And it is here that our greatest challenge lies. Not in the technology itself, but in the creation of a social and political movement, fostered by citizen journalism mediated through new media and new technology, that is able to maintain, in some small way, the hope of a just and lasting peace in Sri Lanka, even when the world around it is going to hell. And it is this hope that fuels Groundviews, not as a simplistic magic bullet against terrorism, but as an increasingly important vehicle for ordinary citizens to record their views in support democracy as the only way through which terrorism can be effectively combated.

The Call
The plan was simple - to use a blog to publish content (text, audio, video, photos) in English and the vernacular (Sinhala and Tamil). The technology they chose was Wordpress because of the ability to use custom plugins and themes to get the site operational in the manner they had envisaged. CPA approached InfoShare, a leading civil society technical support organization, to design and develop the site that, at the time, was the first tri-lingual blog in Sri Lanka. The strategy was to raise awareness of the blog virally. Aggregation of content on a well established Sri Lankan blog aggregator (www.kottu.org) guaranteed high visibility amongst the growing blogosphere locally as well as amongst the diaspora. Key authors were asked to contribute pithy and provocative articles that pushed the boundaries of polity and traditional media and forced readers to think outside their comfort zones. Measures were taken to register the site outside of Sri Lanka in light of the repressive regime in the country that could take steps to block the website. After the launch, fortnightly email updates on new content are sent to around 6,000 email addresses of donors, civil society organization, human rights activists and journalists based locally and internationally. Particular articles, such as those written by a noted personality or dealing with a significant issue or topic, are also sent out via email. These have resulted in a growing and faithful readership base for the website. A detailed set of guidelines for the publication of content and commenting on the site was drawn up that was the first of its kind on any media website in Sri Lanka. These guidelines allowed for progressive communication on highly contentious and emotional issues and at the same time kept the flamers and trolls away. Given the huge erosion of human rights and the culture of abductions and murder, the safety of contributors was guaranteed by anonymous postings, though the identity of each contributor was known to the Editor in order to guarantee trustworthy and high quality submissions. Finally, the groundbreaking content on the site itself resulted in increased visibility.

The Success Story
Groundviews commands name recognition amongst significant civil society actors and journalists in Sri Lanka for content that furthers democracy, peace building, reconciliation and human rights. The site has received over 75,000 page views since its launch in November 2006, which is significant for a blog in Sri Lanka. Groundviews generates around 500 page views a day, with roughly 60% of traffic from Sri Lanka and 40% from the diaspora. The website has been featured in local media, regional media as well as references in numerous blogs. Original news stories from grassroots have been republished globally. Articles on Groundviews have been republished in print and on the web by traditional media and other blogs; these articles were unique to Groundviews and on issues that exposed rights abuses, the absence of ethics in traditional media or the growing democratic deficit in Sri Lanka. Leading journalists and civil society activists have sent in content to be featured on the site and Groundviews is the only website in Sri Lanka that regularly features human interest stories from Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees from the embattled regions of the country. The respect for and recognition of insightful and courageous content on the site is growing amongst key stakeholders in polity and society in Sri Lanka. The primary objective of Groundviews was to set a standard for and raise awareness on citizen journalism supporting peace building through the publication of progressive multi-lingual content. The initiative has largely succeeded in this regard.

NONPROFIT DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…CAPULET COMMUNICATIONS!

Website: http://www.capulet.com, http://www.desmogblog.com

The Challenge
DeSmogBlog.com is an advocacy website and weblog, dedicated to “clearing the PR pollution that clouds the science of climate change.” An overwhelming majority of the world???s climate scientists agree that the globe is warming - the world’s climate is changing - and that the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels is to blame. DeSmogBlog knows that the risks are incalculable and, increasingly, they understand that the solutions are affordable. DeSmogBlog exists to shine the light on techniques and tactics that reflect badly on the PR industry and are, ultimately, bad for the planet. The challenge for Capulet Communications was to extend DeSmogBlog???s online marketing reach and drive more visitors, including journalists, academics, online influencers, environmental and climate change bloggers, to their website.

The Ingenious Proposal
DeSmogBlog engaged Capulet Communications to increase their online visibility. Capulet applied a variety of web and social media marketing strategies and viral campaigns to bolster DeSmogBlog???s web presence.

The Call
Capulet started a weekly ‘best of’ newsletter, created MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr profiles for DeSmogBlog, and consulted on a site redesign. In addition, the following are three viral campaigns that Capulet created that have worked like gangbusters for DeSmogBlog. They built a desktop widget (http://www.desmogblog.com/widget) that displayed recent DeSmogBlog news, as well as a climate footprint counter. They launched a contest, hosted on Flickr, called The Greenest Photo Ever (http://www.flickr.com/groups/greenest/). Why host it on Flickr? Social media marketing works best when you go to the content creators, instead of trying to drag them back to your own site and through a complex submission process. Maybe DeSmogBlog receives fewer visitors during the contest, but they earn more visibility and credibility in the long term. They also devised and built Stars and Stinkers (http://www.desmogblog.com/stars_and_stinkers), a Flash game where visitors rated celebrities based on their environmental-friendliness. They enabled bloggers to embed the game on their own site like a YouTube video, and also released the source code so that designers could build their climate change mash-ups.

The Success Story
When Capulet submitted the desktop widget to Apple’s Dashboard library, it was featured on the site’s home page. For the thousands who have downloaded the widget, DeSmogBlog has been moved out of the browser and onto their desktops. So far, 15,000 people have played the Stars and Stinkers game. While these campaigns have all driven plenty of visitors to DeSmogBlog,
Capulet satisfied a more crucial objective: to bring new visitors from outside the site’s core readership. Over the past year, they???ve had a radical impact on DeSmogBlog’s visitors, increasing them by nearly 300%.

NONPROFIT DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…THE CENTRE FOR POVERTY ANALYSIS (CEPA)!

Website: http://www.cepa.lk, http://www.pact.lk

The Challenge
The history of the Sri Lankan conflict is complex, not only because of the length of time that has passed since its origins, but also the existence of a myriad of perspectives on peace and conflict events. But any dialogue on the origins, manifestation and trajectory of the conflict is limited to certain circles. Bringing the dialogue outside of these limited forums would help to encourage a broader audience to take the first steps in acknowledging the existence of different perspectives and, in time, to understand them. The need to have this dialogue, particularly amongst the Sri Lankan diaspora groups, is clear: much of the different diaspora communities seem completely oblivious to any other viewpoint besides their own. And yet many feel that they should do more to promote understanding between their respective groups, both home and abroad.

The Ingenious Proposal
In order to provide a space for constructive dialogue on the origins, current manifestation and trajectory of the Sri Lankan conflict amongst diaspora communities, the Peace and Conflict Timeline (PACT) initiative was conceptualized. A conflict timeline has a number of uses. It is commonly used by researchers to examine the history of a given conflict and to improve their understanding of the sequence of events that led up to it. Conflict timelines increasingly feature in conflict transformation workshops, where participants are asked to collectively put together a timeline of key conflict events, to prompt exchanges around them. The PACT project takes the conflict timeline tool from the workshop to the web, where participants are free to voice their convictions while not having to step out of their comfort zone. The overall goal of PACT is to encourage dialogue and foster mutual understanding of different perspectives concerning the Sri Lankan conflict amongst the diaspora. It has two broad aims: (1) to be used as a resource to help those with an interest in the Sri Lankan conflict gain a deeper understanding of the history of the conflict; and (2) to encourage dialogue between stakeholders to the Sri Lankan conflict in order to elicit different perspectives on events relating to peace and conflict. Engagement with PACT, if encouraged, can open up new spaces for new sorts of conversations and an opportunity particularly for the diaspora groups to come to understand each others??? perspectives. Diaspora groups from conflict- affected countries run the risk of becoming spoilers to the achievement of peace back home unless they are constructively engaged in dialogue, particularly with the unlike minded, about the critical issues concerning the conflict. In seeking to address this concern, the key audience for (PACT) will be the Muslim, Tamil and Sinhala diaspora communities living outside of Sri Lanka, in various parts of the world.

The Call
The first phase is the development and online presentation of the peace and conflict timeline the tool upon which the whole initiative is anchored. Users of the PACT website are encouraged to engage constructively with the timeline. They will have views on what is missing - whether the timeline looks sufficiently back in history - and be given the opportunity to add new events. The juxtaposition of peace initiatives alongside conflict events will prompt comments on the missed opportunities and hopefully draw out lessons for the future. Users may also like to pose questions for others to address. There is also space here for people to give their personal experience of an event, which beyond a clinical analysis, will make users stop and think about the impact of the conflict on ordinary peoples??? lives. A prototype version of PACT (still in its pilot phase) can be accessed at www.pact.lk/. Currently, the events (both historic and contemporary) are presented on the timeline like newspaper headlines, calling for deeper analysis and understanding from users engaging with the timeline. During a second phase, this initial layer of engagement will be supported by primary research that will feed into the initiative, seeking to collect the spectrum of viewpoints on any given issue. Akin to an oral history project, individuals who can give greater insights into historical events - who have lived through them - will be specifically targeted to give their perspectives. A third phase of PACT will take the dialogue further and facilitate online Dialogue Sessions, inviting skilled mediators to facilitate conversations around specific events presented on PACT between individuals representing different views on the Sri Lankan conflict, including its triggers and trajectory. The team that will work on the project will be the Poverty and Conflict team, which specializes in applied research, conflict sensitivity and promotion of dialogue and exchange on poverty and conflict related issues. The team has undergone training in conflict transformation skills and a particular strength of the team is its gender balance and composition: all ethnic communities of Sri Lanka are represented.

The Success Story
PACT???s success will be measured using qualitative and quantitative indicators. Objective (1) will be measured using quantitative indicators, including the number of user registrations, number of hits to the website, number of postings made by users and the number of returning guests who were initially invited to take part in the Dialogue Sessions. Achievement of objective (2) and progress towards the goal will use more qualitative analyses of users??? posts. As the project is aiming to elicit the full spectrum of perspectives, users??? posts will be categorized according to the possible breadth of opinion on a conflict event or issue. A sample of users??? comments will be monitored for their openness to understanding the different perspectives of others. Qualitative analysis of the exchanges during the structured Dialogue Sessions will be useful in monitoring: do they indicate that even the unlike minded are nevertheless open to hearing about and understanding the other???s perspective? Another facet of the monitoring exercise will be to see whether, as the project progresses, users are positively influenced by reading the views of others, and use language that is respectful, abiding by the rules of engagement.

NONPROFIT DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…LIFELUBE!

Website: http://lifelube.blogspot.com

The Challenge
The communication challenge is to find a way to engage gay and bisexual men in overall sexual health and wellness issues - above the navel, not just below.

The Ingenious Proposal
Create a blog to engage gay and bisexual men in their overall, holistic health as both a means of preventing HIV as well as a way to promote health and wellness in general. The audience is international gay and bisexual men. LifeLube strives to address mental, emotional, spiritual, physical and sexual health in a culturally competent manner.

The Call
LifeLube was developed by a new collaboration of gay men’s health and AIDS organizations called Sexual Health Xchange (SHX) made up of AIDS Project Los Angeles, AIDS Action Committee in Boston, AIDS Foundation of Chicago, Gay Men’s Health Crisis and Philadelphia’s Black Gay Men’s Leadership Council. The group created a website - www.LifeLube.org and a companion blog as online portals to connect with gay and bisexual men. Both were launched on Valentine’s Day of 2007 with the tagline “Gay, sexy, healthy.” Jim Pickett serves as web and blog master and the other entities help with providing content and marketing.

The Success Story
A snapshot of LifeLube.blogspot.com from April 26 through September 26, 2007 revealed: 15,037 visits from 126 countries, an average of 97 per day - in the last month, the average has been 146 per day; 4,250 were return visits, 522 people have visited over 200 times, 965 have visited twice, the average time on site was 2:15 minutes, the top traffic source was Google, responsible for 3,439 visits, the top key words were “gay sexy,” and ???GMHC’s statement on male circumcision for gay men??? was the URL with the highest number of clicks.

Popularity: 22% [?]

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Media Community Awards

MEDIA DIVISION, COMMUNITY CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…IT TOOLBOX!

Website: http://www.ittoolbox.com

The Challenge
Information technology (IT) is complex and always changing. When combined with the reality that every company uses IT solutions in its own unique way, an infinite number of possible IT and business challenges emerge. Nine years ago, ITtoolbox saw the value that the Internet could bring to the business world. In the same way that large consulting firms were able to network their employees to develop and share knowledge, the ITtoolbox community of IT influencers and decision makers would connect millions of professionals, allowing peers to work together to develop best practices.

The Ingenious Proposal
ITtoolbox was created for the sole purpose of getting relevant, best practice information based on the collective intelligence of their professional peers to IT professionals. These are the new water coolers for today???s business. These user-generated content sites are the ones that will impact the business decisions of today and tomorrow. ITtoolbox leverages the power of the community through social media to provide IT professionals with real-time solutions from the front line of IT. By providing a forum for solving problems and gathering information to support decisions through peer collaboration, ITtoolbox is using innovative new ways to foster information-sharing that can significantly impact business. There is no doubt that the world of knowledge sharing has changed in the past year with the evolution of social media. The old-style way of selling information or working through layers of networks to get to knowledge-bearers in an organization is gone. The new way of doing business includes being nimble, using cutting-edge technologies to evaluate data and results and cutting through organizational barriers to get to experienced professionals who are willing to share their knowledge. Through the IT community at ITtoolbox, for the first time IT and business professionals have the ability to tap in to the collective knowledge of over 2 million community members in real-time. ITtoolbox is one of the few social media sites focused on enabling better business decisions. Its goal is to foster active dialogue between peers on a broad range of IT topics — from IT purchasing to software bugs to product enhancements. It provides a forum for professionals to interact, speak with, and listen to others who have experienced similar situations.

The Call
The ITtoolbox network consists of: ITtoolbox Professional Networking: Tools that allow professionals to create their own home pages, connect with other professionals, and communicate with the IT community in a productive environment. Sample profile: Chris Eaton, Product Manager (http://www.ittoolbox.com/profiles/ceaton55) ITtoolbox Blogs: A pioneering community where nearly 400 executives, speakers, book authors and IT gurus write about real issues they are facing today as the IT market is being defined. Sample blog: Adventures in Security, Tom Olzak, Director, Information Security, http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/security/adventures; ITtoolbox Groups: Over 650 professional IT discussion groups where peers engage in question and answer sessions, providing very specific and practical information. Sample discussion group: ERP Vendor Selection, http://erp.ittoolbox.com/groups/vendor-selection/erp-select ITtoolbox Wiki: The first community-edited IT reference guide, enabling the IT community to collaboratively define IT topics and provide practical instructions on anything from IT strategy to operating system configuration. More than 3,900 have been created and edited by the ITtoolbox community. Sample Wiki entry: Information Lifecycle Management, http://wiki.ittoolbox.com/index.php/Information_Lifecycle_Management ITtoolbox Knowledge Bases: 28 Web sites, each focused on one specific segment of the IT market, where content from the ITtoolbox community is organized and bundled with content from third party sources including vendors and news media. Sample knowledge base: Business Intelligence, http://businessintelligence.ittoolbox.com. ITtoolbox has also pioneered the delivery of advertising value through professional online communities. By contextually matching community-generated content that reaches nearly two million IT and business professionals with advertiser messaging, ITtoolbox has set out to deliver quantifiable, industry leading ROI to its clients that include Microsoft, IBM, Dell, Oracle, and over 700 more IT vendors.

The Success Story
Today, millions of professionals are turning to social media sites, like ITtoolbox, that exist for the sole purpose of getting relevant, best practice information based on the collective intelligence of their professional peers. Like e-mail and other essential business tools, online community ITtoolbox.com, has become a daily desktop companion in the professional lives of over one million IT professionals worldwide. ITtoolbox boasts more than 1.8 million unique visitors per month and the network includes more than 1.5 million pages of community-generated content. Since inception, over 1.5 billion e-mails have been exchanged through ITtoolbox Groups on topics ranging from ERP vendor selection to database optimization. Members of the IT community refer to the site often sometimes several times a day to access the knowledge and experience of their peers so they can quickly solve IT problems, make intelligent purchasing decisions, and adeptly manage and improve IT operations for their employers and clients. In terms of specific statistics on its community growth, ITtoolbox cites the following; ITtoolbox Blogs experienced 57% growth in unique visitors and 96% growth in comments on blog entries (Q206 to Q207), and currently has 377 total authors. ITtoolbox Groups experienced 40% growth in unique visitors (Q206 to Q207). Unique visits to ITtoolbox Wiki have increased by more that 55% (Q206 to Q207), and it has become one of the top 10 destinations on the ITtoolbox network.

Popularity: 19% [?]

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Media Blog Awards

MEDIA DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…TAPESTRIES OF HOPE!

Website: http://savehope.blogspot.com

The Challenge
Determine the best way to raise visibility for a critical human rights cause, as well as a documentary being made on that cause - the rape and abuse of young girls in Zimbabwe.

The Ingenious Proposal
Create a community blog to raise awareness and funds for a feature-length documentary on the issue of the abuse of young girls in Zimbabwe. Live-blog from the shoot in Zimbabwe and tap into the urge-to-act in the minds of socially-aware citizens and film enthusiasts.

The Call
Developed a simply designed blog (powered by Blogger), and live-blogged during the shoot in Zimbabwe.

The Success Story
The blog was used as the exclusive means of communication with fans and supporters when the film’s crew was arrested and detained in a prison in Zimbabwe. Huge support was mobilized through the blog and an associated group was created on Facebook. As a direct result from awareness created through the Tapestries of Hope blog and live-blogs from Zimbabwe, the Producer and Director of the documentary were invited to guest-blog on The Huffington Post, the #1 news blog in the world (see Michealene Risley???s and Anand Chandrasekaran’s blogs). The Facebook group now has over 875 members and an active community rallying around the cause. This also resulted in fundraising to the tune of over $5,000 to support the cause and to fund the efforts of the Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe.

MEDIA DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…POSTSECRET!

Website: http://postsecret.blogspot.com

The Challenge
Around the world, many people are troubled, depressed, angry, tormented and even resort to suicide because they feel they cannot tell others what haunts them the most. PostSecret began as an ongoing community art project where people could mail in their secrets anonymously on a homemade postcard. PostSecret???s founder, Frank Warren, wanted to give people a way to share their deepest secrets and lift their burdens, and needed a platform that would reach people globally.

The Ingenious Proposal
Create the PostSecret blog to encourage people to share their secrets as a way of preventing heartache and suicide. Invite people of all backgrounds and nationalities to send in creatively decorated postcards bearing secrets they have never before revealed.

The Call
For the past three years, Frank Warren has personally read every postcard sent to him, and many are posted on the PostSecret Internet blog and in published in books for the world to see.

The Success Story
People have told Warren that they recognized a hidden part of themselves on a stranger???s postcard. Others shared personal experiences of how talking about a painful secret had helped heal a lifelong relationship. These results are exactly what Warren wanted, as the site gives hope and frees people emotionally. Since November 2004, Warren has received more than 150,000 anonymous postcards. The website won two Webby Awards in 2006 and this year was named Weblog of the Year at the Seventh Annual Weblog Awards. The PostSecret project also received a special award from the National Mental Health Association for raising awareness and funds for suicide prevention. Frank Warren gives PostSecret presentations at college campuses, and holds Facebook events to sold-out crowds. He has published 4 PostSecret books.

Popularity: 17% [?]

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Corporate Virtual World Awards

CORPORATE DIVISION, VIRTUAL WORLD CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…BAIN & COMPANY!

Website: www.bain.com

The Challenge
Bain & Company were faced with the challenge of communicating directly with leading business school students from top U.S. universities to recruit them for opportunities at Bain’s 36 worldwide offices. The global war for this level of premium talent has become increasingly fierce, and Bain was seeking out an innovative approach to presenting the depth and breadth of its brand, its intellectual capital, its people and the career opportunities that exist at its worldwide offices - and to position Bain as a leading innovator and the “global consulting firm of choice.”

The Ingenious Proposal
Build a virtual recruiting center in Second Life. This was the first documented recruiting application in Second Life. Create a convenient and cost-effective platform for Bain & Company to successfully communicate recruiting messages targeted to the world’s leading university business school students, where students can easily explore Bain???s intellectual property and diversity.

The Call
Bain & Company hosted 4 major global recruiting events in Second Life throughout 2007 for more than 100 top U.S. university business school students.

The Success Story
Surpassed all Business and Communications Objectives: Enabled Bain’s CEO to meet simultaneously with target recruits from six of the world’s leading universities, an occurrence unprecedented in Bain???s 30 year existence. Allowed students to time-shift recruiting interactions to more convenient evening hours from the convenience of their dorm rooms. Eliminated the scheduling constraints and prohibitive travel costs of flying Bain executives worldwide to U.S. university locations to meet in-person with targeted recruits. In one post-event survey of participating students (administered March 7-8, 2007), the majority of respondents said that attending the virtual recruiting event improved their impression of Bain & Company (zero respondents stated that attending the event created a negative impression). In another post-event survey (administered August 8-9, 2007), 60% of survey respondents said that attending the virtual recruiting event “greatly improved” the chances of continued interviewing with Bain. In the same survey, 100% of respondents characterized the event as “innovative.??? Bain’s virtual recruiting initiative was featured by the Wall Street Journal (???A Job Interview You Don???t Have To Show Up For??? 06/20/2007), CNBC, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, leading local newspaper outlets in Europe and Asia, and numerous new media publications and blogs.

CORPORATE DIVISION, VIRTUAL WORLD CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…CISCO SYSTEMS!

Website: www.cisco.com

The Challenge
Business-to-business communication is an inherently difficult environment for community building. Yet in December 2006, Cisco Systems launched a campus in the virtual world of Second Life (SL) to do just that: foster a community by engaging employees, channel partners and customers on an emerging technology platform. Second Life is a virtual world built and owned by its residents. As a company committed to the changing world of work, Cisco saw the opportunity to leverage Second Life to promote the adoption of 3D immersive environments which, when combined with existing video and mobility tools, establishes what Cisco believes is a valuable new business collaboration platform.

The Ingenious Proposal
Cisco???s employees seized upon the mainstream media interest in Second Life to entice product managers and their executive leadership to begin incorporating virtual world events in to product launches and tradeshow exhibits. The goal was to both disseminate corporate information and to solicit immediate customer feedback. They built their virtual world presence to communicate, interact and collaborate with Cisco customers and partners in a creative and fun 3D environment with business remaining top of mind, and that???s what set Cisco???s Second Life experience apart from a web conference or alternative online meeting. Second Life supports the company vision of immersive environments as an effective business and educational tool for sharing knowledge and community building. This space allowed Cisco to develop social relationships with their customers and explore the role of networking in our daily lives, to exchange ideas about future trends, collaboratively troubleshoot complex networking problems and create internal cross functional promotional opportunities. To that end, SL helped to position the evolution of how Cisco is broadening its brand awareness with end users in all of their markets, especially with the 18-34 age group and small-to-medium sized businesses. Another goal was to promote this story with media outreach on how the market is undergoing this transition; how virtual environments like Second Life are changing how people communicate, interact, collaborate and conduct business. There are over ten million SL residents globally, many of whom interact with Cisco products and services on a regular basis without even knowing it. Cisco???s target audience includes the early adopters that make up the SL community, including IT professionals, corporate CIOs, small business owners, channel partners, thought leaders and international media. Cisco also uses this space to engage with constituencies that might not otherwise come in contact with the Cisco brand.

The Call
Cisco worked with a SL developer on the initial architecture and island features, including seven buildings, two amphitheaters, event pavilions, one baseball park, and one teahouse. Christian Renaud led Cisco???s effort in establishing the company???s presence, which officially launched in December 2006 and debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show the following month. The build itself was only the beginning. To successfully leverage the platform, it was essential to build a community around the campus; this duty fell to Cisco???s New Media team, led by Jeanette Gibson. The team organized ‘in life’ communications to reach this new community, which included the establishment of two groups, Cisco Channel Partners and Cisco News. These groups now comprise hundreds of users who are the first to hear about briefings and events in-world. The campus became the nexus for Cisco information, including product spec URLs, videos and podcast archives within Cisco’s island, creating a bevy of cross promotional opportunities. The real value was the meetings, announcements and events organized by employees across various business groups. Cisco avatars (graphical representatives) served as spokespeople in-world, promoting Cisco’s presence through outreach to multiple audiences, including mainstream media, analysts, emerging SL media, bloggers, and Cisco employees. Campus buildings allow people to interact with Cisco in many different ways. For instance, the Cisco Connected Home showcase enables potential customers and consumers to tour multiple interactive rooms, view models and demo Linksys, KISS and Scientific Atlanta products. The Executive Briefing Center allows remote participants to present briefing materials including slides and video, offering a theoretical snapshot of a future meeting room. More than just an online classroom, the Cisco Training Facility brings employees, channel partners and customers together for training sessions while allowing more expression and stickiness with the use of avatars and social networking. SL???s virtual 3D environment enriches Cisco Technical Support customer interaction with graphics sharing for topology modeling and bi-directional audio for consultations. Finally, the Cisco Technology Center bridges the SL community and Cisco R&D by serving as an open innovation portal with prototype models, a technology suggestion box, innovation showcase area and a recreational area for socializing.

The Success Story
Through many events, Cisco has raised its brand and product awareness, illustrated its commitment to corporate social responsibility, launched new products, educated employees, hosted user group meetings for customer feedback, supported product and solution launches and provided training and technical support to the SL community. Cisco has welcomed 28,000 unique avatars to its virtual campus, with more than 45,000 total visits. This includes 800 employee avatars from 40 different business groups within Cisco. In addition to educating employees on how to navigate, interact and benefit from using virtual worlds, Cisco has enjoyed several successful events, including: December 2006- Initial Launch of Virtual Campus, January 2007- Connected Home CES Event, January 2007- Catalyst Switch launch, February 2007- First Virtual Executive Briefing Center, February 2007- First Second Life Cisco Users Group Meeting, May 2007- Interop Keynote by John Chambers, June 2007- VAR Business Channel Meeting, July 2007- Networkers Live Press Conference Coverage: TheStreet.com- Cisco gets a Second Life, December 2006, MIT Technology Review- A Second Life for Big Business, January 2007, Information Week- Second Life Lessons: Cisco, IBM Pace Corporate Push into Virtual Worlds, February 2007, Metaversed Things to Do- Cisco???s Live Interop Event Today, May 2007, PRWeek ???A Whole New World,??? Aug 2007, and a number of articles and posts in the blogosphere. These results helped Cisco earn honors from Computerworld as one of top eight corporate sites in Second Life.

CORPORATE DIVISION, VIRTUAL WORLD CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…COCA-COLA!

Website: www.coca-cola.com

The Challenge
The Coca-Cola Company is in Second Life. They were in Second Life before any of their marketers made any plans to launch campaigns, in-world consumers had already brought them there, building many of their icons, bottles and cans into their own spaces. This got Coca-Cola thinking, what can they offer a community that has no need to eat or drink? Do avatars thirst? If Coca-Cola didn???t sell beverages, what would it do?

The Ingenious Proposal
Coca-Cola needed to accomplish a few key objectives with this first foray into Second Life. For their entry into the Second Life platform, their primary objective was to land well. Their secondary objective was to create a marketing platform, ???a frame story,??? from which to continue to communicate and co-create with consumers inside of Second Life, Coca-Cola’s global Interactive Marketing managers??? interest in utilizing the platform - extensibility, scalability. Take a position on the issue of brand control. As they had done with their partnerships with video content creators, they needed to demonstrate a position regarding consumer usage of the brand in virtual environments. Are consumers copyright violators? Are they fan clubs? They needed to set precedent for the company on how to respond to the change in the balance of power regarding brand usage.

The Call
Coca-Cola wanted to be purposeful about how they officially entered Second Life as a brand. They had visited the empty islands, shops, and hotel rooms of other brands, and had a clear idea of what they didn???t want to do. They knew they wanted to respect the Second Life community, their culture, their economy, and their ongoing conversation about the roles of brands. With partners Crayon and Millions of Us, Coca-Cola launched their first in-world campaign, Virtual Thirst: (Coke+Alt+Refresh). Phase 1, Listen. In the first phase, they convened an Advisory Board of 12 residents and conducted group sessions and individual conversations with them about the world, the brand, other brands in Second Life, and their entrance ideas. And they took the Board???s advice. Phase 2, Enable. In the second phase, they invited all residents to help translate the Coca-Cola brand in-world. On April 16, they held two in-world events announcing a contest to design the ultimate Coca-Cola experience machine. Coca-Cola executives, members of the press, and residents attended and they unveiled three prototype examples built by residents, each of which delightfully transforms a user???s in-world experience in a manner consistent with the brand. They accepted design submissions of all types: inside of Second Life, via MySpace, email and YouTube, allowing anyone with an idea to play, and entries exceeded our most optimistic estimates. All entries were judged by the Advisory Board of residents, and the winning entrant was flown to Coca-Cola???s developers in San Francisco to oversee in the creation of their design. Phase 3, Celebrate. The third phase will again be marked by an in-world party where they unveil the winning design, fully realized, and memorialize all participants in the contest. The new Coke experience machine will be distributed for free inside of Second Life, and videos of the build process and the winner will be released on TCCC???s YouTube channel and MySpace page.

The Success Story
Coca-Cola knows that they have entered the SL community gracefully primarily from various forms of coverage; mainstream media coverage, influential blogs’ coverage, and overall blogosphere volume and bias, as reported by several of their reporting agencies. Coke???s target measures have been exceeded in terms of media efficiency, coverage, and lessons learned. At every opportunity in the campaign, they took the opportunity to ask advice and permission of the community, even adapting the contest???s prize after the launch based on v-log discussions. They asked consumers to translate the Coca-Cola brand and take it with them where it belongs in-world. And they have not just joined consumers??? conversation, but continued the conversation to date. Check out more at www.virtualthirst.com.

Popularity: 15% [?]

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Corporate Video Awards

CORPORATE DIVISION, VIDEO CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…COBRANDiT!

Website: www.cobrandit.com; www.flyingdogales.com

The Challenge
Flying Dog is Denver’s largest craft brewer and a national brand in growth mode. Their unique history, culture, and approach needs to be regularly communicated in a compelling, dynamic, and authentic voice that weaves together everything from technical information (about how they brew) to lifestyle events (parties, sponsorships, road trips). They want to bring their off-line reality online to an audience of home brewers, artists, free-thinkers and beer drinkers who participate in social media forums and communities.

The Ingenious Proposal
Flying Dog decided to add the aspect of video to their already successful in-house blogging and social media program. Flying Dog aims to be the most web 2.0 savvy craft brewer in the world. They want to create content that shows the world who they are and allow them to share and integrate their activities with those of their audience. They want to provide tools that allow online community members to both talk about them and with them in a number of different forums and spaces. They want to constantly seek out new platforms and modes of expression and distribution. Wherever people go online, they want to be “discovered.”

The Call
Flying Dog approached coBRANDiT, a social media and marketing agency and consultancy which specializes in web video for online communities and opt-in environments, when they decided to beef up their in-house blogging and social media program with video. Flying Dog’s marketing strategy is to “leverage our intrinsic values”, Flying Dog feels those values are best exemplified by their employees and the brewery founders. Video is the perfect way to show and tell an online audience what Flying Dog is all about, and the tools for distributing it (blogs, widgets, RSS) make online participation easy and more dynamic. For 2007 Flying Dog instituted a bi-weekly video program. coBRANDiT shoots video on location in Colorado every 3-4 months and then edits the material into 3-4 minute web shorts. The content includes brewery tours, talks with their founders, the company ski retreat, drinking games, parties, and road trips. coBRANDiT prepares and distributes the videos on YouTube and Blip.tv, and set up a vlog with tools and feeds that bring the video out to iTunes, digg, springwidgets, top video search engines and their various blogs and newsletters and any other place that you can drop a feed or widget into. Flying Dog maintains a handful of blogs and is active on sites such as MySpace and squidoo; these videos and video tools can be embedded in their sites and profiles and are automatically updated whenever coBRANDiT posts a new video. In 2008 Flying Dog plans to involve arts organizations, foodies, groups and individuals by including events they organize with them in the series. The hope is they’ll pick up on the content and spread it around themselves. Flying Dog will publicize this off-line activity not only in the video series, but also in their traditional advertising, POS, and packaging. coBRANDiT is helping Flying Dog strategize this next phase of planning.

The Success Story
For Flying Dog, 2007 has been a year of experimentation. Flying Dog has tried a lot of things in the social media space and they’re not easy to measure. Their mailing list (the main way Flying Dog currently publicizes the video series, among other things) is growing. Flying Dog has put calls to action in some of the videos to drive traffic to squidoo polls. Flying Dog has gotten many comments from bloggers and beer writers about their social media and video presence. ABC did a story on them. Web traffic to their main site, to their video blog, and to other pages (MySpace, etc.) are trending up. Most importantly, Flying Dog beer sales are up. Being active in the social media space doesn’t seem to be about doing one thing perfectly, it’s more about trying many related things, and having the marketing programs, content, and tools available to generate commentary and involvement. Video is a great way to do that, but it only works if you’ve got a good story to tell and the right kind of voice telling it. coBRANDiT has helped Flying Dog find that voice, and bring it out.

CORPORATE DIVISION, VIDEO CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…COCA COLA!

Website: www.coca-cola.com

The Challenge
On June 6, 2006, The Coca-Cola Company, and Diet Coke were rocketed into consumer-generated media by a three-minute epic video, Experiment #137, a low-fi feat of ingenuity that mashed theatre and science and yielded Bellagio-styled Diet Coke geysers. Steve Voltz, one of the creators and participants in the video, told one person, his brother, about the video on EepyBird.com, and then he went to the Oddfellow Theatre in Buckfield, Maine to perform that night???s show. On Monday, David Letterman was calling, and the rest is viral video history. For Coca-Cola and for Mentos, it was the moment when consumers took over the respective brands. What is the most valuable mark in the world to do? How could it take advantage of a viral phenomenon without draining it of its authenticity? What could EepyBird do as a second act? And how could viral success translate to business success? The hit video posed problems for EepyBird and for Coke.

The Ingenious Proposal
Coca-Cola and EepyBird formed a partnership, and came up with a dual campaign resulting in a win-win situation. Coca-Cola???s goals were to drive engagement through time interacting with the brand with video views, video commenting, and video forwarding, to drive traffic to the new Coca-Cola.com, a site devoted to consumer-generated video contests, and to demonstrate an awareness and savvy within emerging technologies, as evidenced by coverage in the press. For EepyBird, the goals were to monetize the tremendous viral success of their content in an environment where consumer-generated video only made hosting sites revenue, and to partner with a platform who could withstand the onslaught of Web traffic generated by the hit content.

The Call
On July 09, 2006, Coca-Cola launched its first-ever global consumer site, Coca-Cola.com, 100% devoted to the function of consumers uploading, sharing, and rating videos. In the weeks that followed, Coca-Cola and EepyBird formed a partnership that saw the company fund production of additional videos, contests, and live events. Today the partnership continues, and spans EepyBird???s developmental projects and continued touring. The longevity of the relationship is due in part to the fact that Coke???s investment has not simply been in the literal translation of EepyBird???s geyser work, but also in recognizing the underlying opportunities ???there are more Experiments to be had in a variety of everyday things being made to behave in extraordinary ways. There is life after geysers.??? The jointly-sponsored Poetry in Motion campaign illustrated the point: Experiment #214. Coke sponsored EepyBird???s second major viral video release, while maintaining creative agnosticism. The result was a second smash hit that has been viewed over six million times, and continues to close in on its forerunner???s numbers. Distributed through Google Video, no activation was performed other than the teaser video and the actual release onsite. In fact, Coke ran Google???s first ever in-line advertising within Experiment #214 for its Poetry in Motion contest. Coca-Cola.com hosted a contest designed by EepyBird, in which consumers created and submitted videos of ordinary objects doing extraordinary things. Again, no PR or activation was performed ???we simply relied on the viral effect of the videos explaining the contest.??? The winner was flown to Buckfield to collaborate with EepyBird on their next video release.

The Success Story
Experiment #214 and Poetry in Motion used both the new online video technology and equally important, new online video culture, to create innovative commercial content for broadband that succeeded in solving difficult problems both companies were facing. Experiment #214 had over 6 million views, was the #1 shared link among teens for 3 straight months, the #1 video on Google Video Top 100 for 9 straight days, and the #31 viewed video of all time on Google Video. EepyBird was able to partner with a financial backer who allowed them total creative control, ownership, and production technique. EepyBird and Coke set precedent for a corporate/amateur content producer relationship that genuinely benefitted both parties. The Experiment???s videos won a Webby and were nominated for an Emmy. Coca-Cola doubled its site traffic and realized tremendous media efficiency.

CORPORATE DIVISION, VIDEO CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…IBM!

Website: www.ibm.com/soa, www.bpmroi.techweb.com
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxKLwobDLvY&eurl

The Challenge
Process improvement is a critical component to service-oriented architectures (SOA), however modeling a business process is an area that may be considered somewhat dull. IBM wanted a fun and creative way to show students, IT teams and business leaders in an organization that creating a business process doesn???t have to be dull.

The Ingenious Proposal
Using the format of a movie trailer is an innovative way to use the web as a canvas to paint the picture of how users can develop a business process. IBM created Innov8, a new video game designed to bridge the gap in understanding between IT teams and business leaders in an organization. The medium of the game and its sneak preview video on YOUTUBE are designed to draw the viewer in and demonstrate modeling a business process in a way that is easy to understand and fun. This concept of using a game as a learning tool for software technology is innovative in software technology, and IBM is one of the first to market this. The game, which was announced at IBM???s Impact 2007 conference in May 2007, is described by Business Week magazine as a tool to “help tech managers better understand the roles of businesspeople, and vice versa, players go into a virtual business unit to test their hand at ventures such as redesigning a call center, opening a brokerage account, or processing an insurance claim.???

The Call
Innov8 is a sneak preview of a video game that puts a businessperson in a virtual office to the task of constructing a more efficient company. The game is meant to address how organizations can improve a company’s internal business processes. Process improvement includes designing software for a series of linked, modular business services. The software for modeling and deploying these designs is called business process management, or BPM. The marketing strategy is to make the video “movie trailer” for the game available on YOUTUBE and the BPM ROI website (www.bpmroi.techweb.com) to spark interest in the “coming attraction,” the actual game. In the game, a person is given a series of tasks from the CEO, including understanding a single business process, then finding the bottlenecks that slow it down. Participants will use a joystick to navigate around a virtual office where they can speak to other employees???i.e., in the call center operation–and report back to executives. In the end, workers will be assessed with a score on how well they did. The game has been previewed at industry events and trade shows.

The Success Story
The game trailer on the www.bpmroi.techweb.com site has garnered over 6 million impressions to date. With this number of web impressions, we believe interest in the actual game (released in early October) will be high. The number of visitors to the web page map to the program objective of creating interest in the release of the Virtual INNOV8.

CORPORATE DIVISION, VIDEO CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…MICROSOFT WINDOWS SERVER DIVISION AND WAGGENER EDSTROM!

Website: www.waggeneredstrom.com, www.microsoft.com
Video link: http://www.microsoft.com/winme/0704/29897/Beta_3_Video_2_MBR.asx

The Challenge
With several months to go until Microsoft???s Windows Server 2008 was released to manufacturing, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide???s PR efforts for Microsoft centered on the following: 1) Creating early momentum with interim code milestones; and 2) Building anticipation for the final product. With heavy pressure from competing Linux and VMWare product solutions, Microsoft wanted Windows Server 2008 to remain top-of-mind with key audiences and show what beneficial features were coming. Toward that goal, Microsoft desired large-scale awareness for beta 3, encouraging extensive downloads and evaluations globally. The challenge was to build excitement around Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Beta 3, encourage customer evaluations, excite partners, and demonstrate that the Microsoft Server team has a sense of humor, all at the same time.

The Ingenious Proposal
Anecdotal evidence from press and influentials noted the limited fun-factor of Windows Server announcements and activities compared with more creative and flashy ideas for consumer products. Combining this perception with the fast-moving nature of viral videos Waggener Edstrom had seen propagate digitally, they wanted to merge these two worlds and embraced the challenge. They set out to try a new communication and story-telling vehicle that demonstrated Microsoft???s sense of humor while still delivering a very pertinent message to our primary audience: IT pros. They secured broad-reaching, public distribution vehicles and video sites to maximize the receiving audience for the film. Waggener Edstrom set the following specific and measurable metrics for the video???s reach: 8+ blogs pick up and link to the video, 12,000 views in first 30 days, and the video would be used in at least one public Microsoft function. In addition to these business goals, the Microsoft client overseeing Windows Server PR, Bob Visse, put forth a specific challenge to Waggener Edstrom???s team — he wanted to see some new PR tactics that were edgy, but low-risk. They took this fine-lined directive to heart, started brainstorming, and seized the opportunity to wow him. Beyond the more traditional PR tactics (not described in this case study) they wanted to bring a bit more sizzle to the traditionally dry topic of Server technology. With the help of Waggener Edstrom???s Digital Strategies Group they brainstormed on video ideas, developed a compelling and humorous script, and worked closely with clients, partners, and film crew on execution.

The Call
Load the head of product development into a biplane and have him drop beta 3 DVDs out of it…or at least make it look that way! Through creation of a viral video timed with Beta 3, Waggener Edstrom supplemented traditional PR tactics, generating both global awareness and smiles. The video, starring Microsoft???s Iain McDonald, illustrated absurd ways to distribute code — ultimately encouraging downloads by customers, ISVs, and OEMs. Their strategic solution delivered the following three-part process. Concept: The video ideas brainstorm at the agency included a broad cross-section of teammates; attendees included Microsoft Server and Tools business team members and Digital Strategies Group team members. Production: Proposal, video script, and proposed metrics were delivered to clients for review and budget approval. With a finalized script in hand, Waggener Edstrom approached Iain McDonald about his participation. With his agreement, the team hired a film crew, created a filming schedule and brought together the necessary props. Distribution: Waggener Edstrom delivered the final film to Microsoft global subs so they could localize it (voice-over or subtitle) as needed. Video sites like YouTube and MetaCafe, as well as Microsoft.com provided broad online distribution of the video. A generic version of the film was also given to select partners for customization. The following are two hurdles they faced and overcame: Filming Schedule: The client and video???s main character, Iain McDonald, had such a tight schedule that filming was permitted for only one day. Meticulous scheduling allowed the bulk of the shots needed, but other shots were achieved by the use of a body-double who donned Iain???s clothes. Partner Exposure: Clients specified the video would show Iain delivering beta 3 to each of the four key partners (HP, Dell, Intel and AMD). This way, each partner could use the video on their own if they wished. The team offered a creative solution: Rather than filming Iain going physically to each partner site, the miracle of video editing created the illusion he visited all four since logoed DVDs disappeared from his briefcase one by one. This also helped the video duration remain short.

The Success Story
By the end of the beta 3 campaign, Waggener Edstrom exceeded all metrics. Microsoft experienced over 300,000 downloads of beta 3 code, nearly 17,000 online views of the video (numbers continue to increase), 32 blogs, publications and other outlets linking to the video, increasing exposure to IT pros, video usage during two Microsoft event keynotes (U.S. and Tokyo) reaching thousands, and the video was adapted for use in several countries & languages.

Popularity: 14% [?]

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Corporate Podcast Awards

CORPORATE DIVISION, PODCAST CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…THE ARKETI GROUP!

Website: www.arketi.com

The Challenge
The Arketi Group, an integrated marketing and PR agency, desired a way to promote the firm and further its contribution to industry thought leadership relating to business-to-business (B2B) marketing.

The Ingenious Proposal
The Arketi Group created and built a podcasting plan in late 2005. Arketi???s research and planning culminated in a 2006 launch of a regular podcast series designed to cover news, ideas and best practices that business-to-business marketing professionals need to know. The goals were: 1) To advance the firm???s capabilities in writing and producing podcasts by exposing key personnel to podcasting during 2006. 2) To secure a leadership position in business-to-business podcasting by being among the first and most prolific professionals to produce podcasts covering B2B integrated marketing in the first half of 2006. 3) To produce thought provoking content that furthers Arketi Group???s position as a leader in business-to-business integrated marketing during.

The Call
In preparing the program, Arketi professionals evaluated other popular business podcasts to design a format that would be desirable to prospective subscribers. This research led to the creation of a 7-minute-or-less format that included bursts of marketing news and original content. The podcast series was named the ???Arketi B2B Marketing Minute.??? Working off an editorial calendar, members of Arketi???s team write and record all segments. Each podcast undergoes post-production during which the audio is edited and music is added. The final segments, with accompanying show notes, are posted on the Arketi Web site and syndicated to podcatchers such as iTunes, Podcast Alley, Odeo, Podfeed, Podcast.net, Podcast Pickle, etc. On average, Arketi produces two new podcasts each month. To support the podcasts, the Arketi team developed a thinking section on its Web site to promote and archive the ongoing series. In addition, Arketi cross-promoted the podcasts on its blogs BtoB Marketing News and Survey City, and in its regular enewsletter, The Core. Arketi has also given presentations on podcasting to Sprint???s national PR team, PRSA|GA PRactical Perspectives Conference and PRSA|GA Real World.

The Success Story
Through its podcasts, Arketi shares information vital to any organization looking to generate results and accelerate growth through intelligent messaging, branding, marketing, public relations and demand generation. 60 percent of Arketi???s staff and 85 percent of its senior account service team have written and produced at least one podcast. Arketi B2B Marketing Minute is currently the number one podcast on iTunes listed in the B2B marketing category. More than 9,000 unique visitors have viewed the Arketi B2B Marketing Minute. An estimated 15 percent of total traffic driven to www.arketi.com comes to the site through the podcast. The Arketi B2B Marketing Minute had been name the podcast of the day by Business-Podcasting.com and Toby Bloomberg, a top marketing blogger, blogged about the podcast, ???The cool thing about the Arketi B2B Marketing Minute is it’s a quick bite and several staff members are involved in recording.??? Mike Neumeier, APR, Arketi principal and architect of the Arketi B2B Marketing Minute, has been invited to speak at conferences and to companies about podcasting and has been quoted by SmallBusinessNation on how to build an effective podcasting program.

Popularity: 13% [?]

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Corporate Division Awards

CORPORATE DIVISION

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…DELL OUTLET!

Website: www.delloutlet.com

The Challenge
Dell Outlet has inventory based only on the equipment that is returned to Dell, which therefore can fluctuate quite a bit. When there is a large inventory “bubble” of a particular model, there may be time to generate an e-mail campaign to promote that particular system and generate more demand. However, when the bubble is smaller, the major lever to drive sales has been to lower the price of the overstocked model. The challenge for Dell Outlet was to figure out a way to generate more traffic and greater demand for their products.

The Ingenious Proposal
Dell Outlet came up with the idea that Twitter, a social networking and micro blogging service, may be a solution to the challenges presented, by offering Twitter-specific promotions and featured products. The goals were: 1. To drive increased traffic, and thus increased demand for particular products for which Dell Outlet has inventory greater than desired levels. 2. To grow the pool of Dell Outlet’s Twitter followers to the point where it is sizable enough to have an impact on specific demand-generation postings. 3. To increase the visibility of Dell Outlet within the community of Twitter users and hence the share of mind and likelihood of Twitter users to consider Dell Outlet for their next technology purchase. By connecting with this group of potential customers that are likely to influence others who are not as technical or connected to social media, there may be a possibility of also influencing others beyond Twitter.

The Call
Dell Outlet’s Twitter strategy revolves around regularly posting special Twitter-only offers or highlighting great deals currently available on www.twitter.com/delloutlet. Launched in early June, Dell Outlet currently has nearly 300 individual subscribers (followers) and hopes to continue to expand that base. When a new tweet is posted, it generally directs followers to their Dell Outlet landing page for Twitter at www.delloutlet.com/twitter. There the Twitter-only promotion will appear only for the time period during which the offer is valid - typically until 11:59pm Central that evening. After that point, visitors are invited to become followers of Dell Outlet on Twitter. Furthermore, on Dell Outlet’s Home & Home Office customer homepage, they have featured a similar invitation to subscribe to their Twitter postings at www.delloutlet.com/home. The tools used for Dell Outlet’s Twitter strategy are Dell Outlet’s web site and Twitter page. Ricardo Guerrero led the development of strategy for Dell Outlet to use Twitter as a marketing vehicle and set up all the web pages and Twitter presence, while his colleague Stefanie Nelson has been responsible for maintaining those pages and creating the actual tweets, with an attempt to post at least once every other week. Dell Outlet’s Twitter has linked to Dell’s Direct2Dell blog, which is also posting its headlines on Twitter, and is currently in discussions to develop a strategy with other teams within Dell to create a unified Twitter presence.

The Success Story
For approximately the first month and a half of Dell Outlet’s Twitter campaign, Dell Outlet tracked growth of followers as well as daily traffic metrics to the www.delloutlet.com/twitter page. Specifically, by tracking traffic to this page on the days that offers were posted to Twitter, a rough response rate to each posting could be calculated. Further, the actual utilization of each coupon code can also be tracked. The Twitter campaign was very successful, and Dell Outlet will continue to utilize this form of promotion in the future.

CORPORATE DIVISION, OTHER CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…GENERAL MOTORS!

Website: www.gm.com

The Challenge
General Motors (GM) faces a perception of being a company that is behind the times and not keeping up with what consumers want. To overcome this perception, GM has recognized the need to move away from the traditional approach to communicating with the public, and has sought new ways to connect with their desired audience.

The Ingenious Proposal
GM decided to create a core social media team and tasked them with goals to overcome certain perceptions of GM???s public through the use of social media, establish a firm and respected presence in the blogosphere, establish a trustworthy and respected presence on social media sites, and increase company involvement in social media. GM has a wide and varied audience that it must build relationships with. With this new social media team, GM is focusing on gaining the interest, trust and respect of a younger audience who may perceive GM to be a car company dedicated to people from older generations.

The Call
GM created a core team of individuals whose sole responsibility is to work with social media. The team is comprised of four individuals who coordinate employee education and corporate involvement in social media, and actively participate in blogs, podcasts and social networks. The company uses three public relations firms to assist in some of the team???s necessary legwork and to provide insight on how to best utilize social media. GM has established a firm presence in the blogosphere through the use of corporate blogs. GM currently maintains two corporate blogs: Fastlane (focused on vehicles) and FYI (focused on auto-related issues). GM uses these blogs to communicate with consumers and get their input. Bob Lutz, GM???s VP of Global Product Development, has often posted written and video responses to bloggers??? comments and questions on the blog. In addition to the blogs, GM frequently invites and hosts social media (bloggers, podcasters, social network users) at GM events and allows them access to various executives for interviews, Q&A, etc. GM recently hosted a group of social media users from Facebook, MySpace and Flickr at an iconic event in Michigan that celebrates classic cars from around the world. These guests not only attended the event itself, but also were taken on tours of various GM sites, were included in media-only events, and had the chance to talk about their experiences on the various social networks they represented. One of the traditional media outlets in Michigan interviewed two of the guests about why GM brought them out; thus, further highlighting how social media enhances the reach of traditional media. To further entrench themselves on social networks, members of the social media team often start and join in on discussions on these sites. The team wants to position GM on these sites to create dialogue, not sell product. The social media team at GM also hosts employee education classes to show employees what social media is and how they can best use it to support their business purposes.

The Success Story
Here are some comments from bloggers and other social media users that demonstrate the effectiveness of the social media team???s work: ???I recently was flown down to Detroit, courtesy of General Motors and toured their headquarters and even got to shake hands with some high up executives. Let me tell you that was a real experience. Their facilities are gorgeous. If anyone out there is looking at purchasing a new vehicle seriously consider a GM??? (Facebook user who attended a GM event). ???I must say thank you for responding to so many of us, including myself??? (visitor???s comment from the Fastlane blog after receiving a response to an inquiry). ???Thanks for the responses. It’s nice to know that the comments are taken seriously and that people at GM are open to change and improvement??? (blog comment).

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…THE SCUDERI GROUP!

Website: www.scuderigroup.com

The Challenge
The Scuderi Group is an engine development company of fluid and thermodynamic experts focused on improving the performance of the internal combustion engine. As a start-up with a revolutionary new approach to the design of the combustion engine, the Scuderi Group faced a communications challenge. The company needed to convince key influencers in the automotive market that an engineering design that hadn???t fundamentally changed in over a century could be radically altered in a way that would dramatically improve fuel efficiency while sharply cutting harmful emissions. The company needed to raise awareness, understanding, and acceptance of the revolutionary Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine technology among a skeptical audience of Automotive industry influencers and potential investors in a crowded and difficult market.

The Ingenious Proposal
The Scuderi Group asked Topaz Partners, a PR firm, to help them address the challenge. A guiding philosophy at Topaz Partners is that Web 2.0 and traditional media outreach are not mutually exclusive when it comes to public relations. The goal in this campaign was to use social media tools and resources to gain wider visibility among traditional automotive and engineering media outlets for the Scuderi Group. These traditional media outlets, in turn would help to promote their Web 2.0 initiatives, creating a PR “loop effect” that would generate significantly more visibility together than as separate initiatives.

The Call
The solution to this communications challenge consisted of two key elements: information and distribution. Information: the Scuderi Group enlisted the services of one of the world???s top engineering research firms, Southwest Research, to study the engine design and to generate technical data about the engine that would be of key interest to engineers. The Scuderi Group worked with Sonalyst Inc. to produce a top quality, highly informative series of videos about the engine???s theory of operation and design. The Scuderi Group???s president, Sal Scuderi, is an engineer by training, with an exceptional ability to speak about the Scuderi Air-Hybrid technology in clear terms both to engineering professionals, automotive reporters, and laymen. Distribution: Topaz Partners leveraged Web 2.0 tools and resources to distribute the company???s information and message across a targeted audience at low cost. AirHybridBlog.com was launched to promote Scuderi Group news and events, as well as related automotive and environmental news and is updated on a regular basis. Audio interviews with Scuderi executives are produced as Podcasts on a regular basis. Scuderi focused on news-driven topics as well as design issues, and distributed them via AirHybridblog.com. Monthly e-mails were sent to a list of over 1,000 key automotive industry influencers and journalists, which includes the latest company news and links back to Airhybridblog.com. Sonalyst-produced videos were posted to YouTube, and distributed via Scuderi???s dedicated YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/scuderigroup. Videos were also promoted through company blog and e-mails. Media releases were sent to key automotive and engineering reporters, distributed over wire services, and posted on AirHybridBlog.com. Reporters and editors were contacted about The Scuderi Group as news and editorial opportunities warranted.

The Success Story
Topaz Partners’ integrated approach to public relations, utilizing both mainstream and social media tools and resources, created the media “loop effect” that they intended: Airhybridblog has generated more than 70,000 page views; The Scuderi Podcast generates up to 55 downloads a day. Views of company???s “Theory of Operation” video on YouTube have surged to over 100,000, and continue to increase. Scuderi YouTube videos are embedded into mainstream media online stories, increasing views and visibility. The Scuderi Group has received coverage in Wired News, Public Radio???s Marketplace, NPR???s All Things Considered, Forbes, and Motor Trend, among others. Pertinent news stories and videos are promoted on both AirHybridblog and www.scuderigroup.com for additional distribution. Scuderi news stories and company videos are posted on social bookmarking websites, including Digg and Techcrunch, generating further visibility. Subscriptions to the Scuderi newsletter have surpassed 1,200. Topaz Partners??? conclusion is this: When it comes to social media and public relations, the sum is greater than the individual parts. Social media (including podcasts, blogs and videos) and traditional PR efforts are most effective and most powerful when used together as part of a coordinated strategy.

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES!

Website: www.infosys.com

The Challenge
The challenge was to create a platform for employees of the organization where they could communicate with senior management. Top-down communication usually occurred through mailings, which were impersonal in nature. If employees had questions they wanted to pose to senior management, they were unable to do so directly. Another challenge was how to manage the scale of such a solution, since it would be open to all 70,000+ of Infosys??? global employees.

The Ingenious Proposal
Infosys created ???Ask Kris,??? a monthly interactive column between Infosys employees and the CEO of Infosys Technologies, S. Gopalakrishnan. With ???Ask Kris,??? employees get an opportunity to ask questions to S. Gopalakrishnan directly about a range of issues/topics. In addition to achieving the main objective, facilitating communication of the employees with senior management, the aim was also to add a personal touch to the communication, so that employees felt more connected to senior management. The idea was to make senior management more approachable, yet manage the magnitude.

The Call
With the monthly column ???Ask Kris,??? a CEO corner has been created. Employees can now pose their questions or concerns on any issues to the CEO directly through the company???s intranet, Sparsh. The questions window is open for a week. During this time, the questions can be read on Sparsh. Once the submissions window closes, all the questions are displayed on Sparsh till the time the answers are published. Employees are also encouraged to send in their suggestions and opinions to Internal Communications. The replies to the questions are collated through extensive research and by getting input from various Infosys teams. Kris himself reviews the final draft. The answers are then published and displayed on Sparsh till the next cycle of questions is launched.

The Success Story
In the first edition (June 2007), questions were classified under various themes like- Infrastructure, Salary/Compensation Review, Utilization, The Road Ahead, Recruitment, Employee Welfare, Managing Competition, Policy, Environmental Concerns, The Personal Journey and Others. Due to overwhelming response, a new voting and rating option was introduced for the July edition to enable Infoscions to vote for the question they wanted answered. The top 10 questions were then selected and answered. This initiative was taken by the Internal Communications team, along with the Sparsh team and the IS team of Infosys Technologies. The July edition saw 200 questions pouring in representing participation through the voting system by 2000 Infoscions. There were over 1000 hits per day with employees across units viewing the answers. ???Ask Kris??? has seen tremendous participation from employees within the entire organization. It has provided a platform for employees to voice their queries and concerns and get them addressed by the CEO. With ???Ask Kris,??? senior management has become more approachable to Infoscions. Employees now get a feeling that their concerns are not just being heard, but are also being addressed in the best possible way.

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Corporate Community Division Awards

CORPORATE DIVISION, COMMUNITY CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…MICROSOFT AND WAGGENER EDSTROM WORLDWIDE!

Website: www.microsoft.com; www.waggeneredstrom.com

The Ingenious Proposal
For WPC 2007, our goal was to deliver a breakthrough digital strategy that would map to Microsoft???s objectives: showcase MSPP program value, demonstrate partner opportunity via Microsoft Business Group product news, explain Software+Services framework for partners, deliver breakthrough digital strategy, enlist Partners to share their experience at WPC (blogging) and satisfaction with MSPP (video testimonials), broaden the annual campus visit program beyond channel press, expand international coverage, and increase local market coverage as a means of reinforcing WPC messages to Partners in attendance. For WPC 2007 Microsoft wanted to expand their reach and awareness for partners worldwide (as well as press and analysts) through one platform to showcase the richness and value of partner resources and opportunity, and provide a forum for those unable to attend the conference to experience key activities such as exec keynotes/speeches/videos virtually. Digital WPC seemed a perfect vehicle to achieve the objective of delivering a breakthrough digital strategy the first of its kind at WPC, and enlist US and international partners to share their experiences at WPC via blogs, from a third party lens.

The Call
In an effort to expand conference???s reach to a broader audience including: delegates, press, analysts, and partners not able to attend, Waggener Edstrom???s Microsoft Small and Midmarket Solutions and Businesses PR team and Digital Strategies Group created Digital WPC. Video was a major component of the site and focused on the executive keynotes that included Steve Ballmer, Kevin Turner, Allison Watson, Chris Capossela, Mike Sievert, Andy Lees, Steve Guggenheimer, Sanjay Parthasarathy, Tami Reller, Simon Witts, and Maria Martinez. Each emphasized how Microsoft delivers new opportunities to partners through software plus services, the ongoing momentum behind Office 2007, Windows Vista and Exchange Server 2007 as well as the next wave of innovation through BizTalk Server 2006 R2 and the upcoming launches of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. Key solutions included the following: Digital WPC was showcased in Influential communiques with press and analysts, press releases, encouraging press/analysts to visit the site. They generated awareness with business groups through weekly updates, which included a very visible URL to Digital WPC in all WPC related mails. DSG built an Outlook Signature for Waggener Edstrom and Microsoft highlighting Digital WPC. They cross-linked Digital WPC to the Microsoft WPC registration page, PressPass and the Virtual Press Room. They seeded Digital WPC with Microsoft internal and US/international Microsoft partner bloggers, letting them know about the Digital WPC and encouraging them to blog about the content. They also purchased a small Search Engine advertisement on MSN, Yahoo and Google. Digital WPC Web site: http://members.microsoft.com/partner/digitalwpc

The Success Story
The Digital WPC site surpassed all expectations. More than 50,300 Microsoft Partners have visited the community site since the start of the conference. In less than three weeks, we exceeded (100.7%) the original 3-month goal of 50,000 visits. In the end, the program results surpassed expectations in each work stream category. Total worldwide coverage grew by 56%. International coverage from grew by 210%. Most importantly, quality of coverage rose significantly year-over-year, with message pull-through at an all-time event high of 93.2%. Key observations are summarized below: Extremely targeted community: to date the site has had more than 70,000 visitors, with more than half of those qualified partners. Strong community presence: the integration of partner blogs captured an additional 6,000 visits. These partner blogs provided 3rd party validation, credibility for Digital WPC. Blog activity via Digital WPC stimulated additional, independent blogs for the duration of the event. This year, there were 82 original blogs generated by WPC, up 64% from 2006. Prolonged Interest: most sites see weekly traffic drop as much as 80% the week following the event. Digital WPC saw almost no change from week one to week two.

CORPORATE DIVISION, COMMUNITY CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES, LTD.!

Website: www.infosys.com

The Challenge
Despite various communication forums across an organization, manager communication has always been an area of concern. The lack of a single interface for managers to share and assimilate relevant information was a serious bottleneck in achieving communication effectiveness across the Infosys organization. Also, there was a complete absence of any company communication gateway on the Infosys extranet.

The Ingenious Proposal
Infosys decided to conceptualize and create the first ever Infosys Managers Portal, a comprehensive webpage that would serve as a communication platform for managers worldwide to share, assimilate and analyze relevant business information. They would build a platform of networking for the Mangers and also establish a connection between the people working both at base and on-site locations.

The Call
Infosys launched the first ever Manager???s Portal on the Infosys intranet. The portal has multiple sections, each giving an insight to the managers on topics designed to equip the managers with all the necessary information that they would need. INFORMATION SECTIONS: 1. What???s hot: gives insight into the happenings of Infosys itself. Infosys uploads about 3-4 articles daily. 2. Competition: news articles from companies that are Infosys??? competitors. They upload about 2-3 articles daily. 3. Environment: this section encompasses the articles that talk about the IT environment at large. The latest technology trends, IT news, etc are showcased here. 4. My Tools: this section links managers to essential tools. It also contains a sub-section called Knowledge Center, which has articles on leadership, mentoring, and case studies. 5. The Policy Zone: this section contains all the Policies that exist in the organization. It also includes updates of changes that are made to existing policies. 6. My Inbox: this section has three sub-sections: a. Company calendar b. Downloads: templates for mailings, presentations, newsletters, posters, etc., and c. A link that directs them to a mail ID where they can write in with their suggestions, feedback and articles. 7. Mail Archives: This is a repository of all the communication mailings that are sent to Infoscions (Infosys employees). These mailings span topics from Health Insurance to Performance Appraisals to Quiz Contests, and more. INTERACTIVE SECTIONS: 1. Poll: a poll is uploaded every week. It includes questions pertaining to the industry and the managerial role in general, i.e., What is the Top Global Economic Challenge? 2. Discussion Board: this is a forum where managers can start discussions on relevant topics and receive input from other managers. 3. Luncheon Meet: This is a networking section where Managers register and set up lunch meetings amongst themselves. 4. Mentors Speak: In this section Infosys publishes articles from the top executives of the organization. This helps other managers draw from their experiences and knowledge. 5. In the Spotlight: Here they highlight inspiring people from various walks of life who have either excelled at something or achieved something great.

The Success Story
In the first week of the launch of the Manager???s Portal, there were 15,000 hits, averaging more than 2000 hits per day. 800 profiles were uploaded on the Luncheon Meet section for networking, and 71% of the managers responded positively to the portal, stating it serves its purpose. Onsite mangers successfully established connections with people at base locations via the various sections on the Portal.

CORPORATE DIVISION, COMMUNITY CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…UNILEVER!

Website: www.unilever.com; www.edelman.com

The Challenge
You???re 19 years old and your dream girl is just across the room. You breathe deeply, count to ten, and walk up to her. When she smiles at you, you nearly melt, and then her best friend moves in. ???Stacy!,??? she chastises, ???it???s GIRLS??? night out!??? Glaring, you slink away. Every single guy aged 18 to 24 has a common enemy - the Gamekiller. A Gamekiller is a person who interferes with your efforts to pick up women. In 2006, Unilever (a global consumer packaged goods company) developed a group of 14 Gamekiller characters who were on a mission to stop the AXE guy from getting the girl. Unilever had already established itself as a cutting-edge marketer. Once our client had this cast from the Mother Hen and the Drama Queen to the One-Upper and the British Accent Guy, AXE knew it couldn???t settle for plain old advertising!

The Ingenious Proposal
Unilever enlisted the help of the Edelman public relations firm. The first objective was to go where no company had gone before and use a social networking vehicle to generate mass exposure to and word-of-mouth around a marketing campaign (with a benchmark of several hundred thousand online impressions). The second objective was to generate target audience participation with adoption of the Gamekillers concept, including incorporation of the Gamekiller vernacular (benchmark was 15,000 friends along with 1,000 accompanying message board postings and comments to determine the best way to reach the AXE guy. Edelman team members went undercover to experience his lifestyle firsthand. They hung out with guys at bars and on college campuses, chatted them up on blogs and online social networks, hosted focus groups, and devoured their favorite online and offline media. This field research uncovered several key insights. First, Edelman learned that humor and sex are still the most important factors in capturing a guy???s attention. We also found that MySpace, the Web???s No. 1 online social community, was all the rage among their audience, with nearly 2.5 million guys ages 18 to 24 active there. Once they confirmed the power of this network, they researched local MySpace celebrities who would be most effective in promoting a Gamekillers campaign. Their criteria? Popular, beautiful girls with the most number of friends on MySpace. Our top choice? Christine Dolce (aka Forbidden), one of the most sought-after girls on the network, with more than 900,000 friends. Edelman learned that AXE???s core demographic of 18 to 24-year-old guys consumes mainly nontraditional media, and that the way to reach it and build relationships with it over time is through word-of-mouth and social networking. Given that the AXE guy is often cynical about marketing efforts, communications needed to be entertaining, relevant, and consistent with the established AXE mantra of helping the guy get the girl. At the start of this campaign, most guys in our target audience had heard of AXE before, and they knew that AXE marketing was commonly over the top, unique and bold. Edelman needed to ensure that the Gamekillers program continued to push limits and surpass what they???d seen before.

The Call
The MySpace campaign strategy involved using an innovative new media channel to reach the target guy where he plays and engage him with an online community where he could see himself and his friends as the characters. The Gamekillers MySpace presence would personalize content and speak in an authentic tone, and would capitalize on brand humor to give guys (and their girls) an in-depth, fun Gamekillers experience. To ensure that the messaging would resonate with audiences, Edelman planned to partner with credible spokespeople who were already influential in the MySpace community. Another aspect of their strategy involved educating our client, Unilever, about the social networking space. Unilever, like most large companies, was accustomed to tightly controlled marketing messaging in media such as print advertising and press releases. Unilever was uncomfortable with the idea that audiences could go into AXE-sponsored forums and say whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Unilever didn???t want the AXE brand associated with overt sexual expression or profanity, but the company was limited in what it could do to prevent unwanted activity. Therefore, Edelman???s plans included setting expectations appropriately and creating a set of mutually agreed-upon protocols for interacting with the Gamekillers on MySpace. AXE and Edelman created a MySpace Gamekillers group (www.myspace.com/gamekillers - no longer active), which was hosted by the most popular girl on MySpace, Forbidden, and was designed to encourage the AXE guy to embrace the Gamekillers concept and communicate the vernacular among his peers. The Edelman team, in the roles of the individual Gamekiller personas, interacted with MySpace members and spread AXE???s messaging through topical forums and the characters??? personal profiles. A ???How Gamekiller Proof Are You???? quiz, introduced and marketed on the Gamekillers group and character profile pages, had audience members answering 15 questions that assessed their vulnerability to various Gamekillers. The quiz served as a viral mechanism for guys to let their friends know about the campaign, and ongoing challenges and giveaways kept members interested over the length of the program. Additionally, Forbidden and the individual Gamekiller characters posted periodic bulletins and blog entries to keep the content fresh and engage MySpace friends in an ongoing dialogue about Gamekillers

The Success Story
The Gamekillers program on MySpace surpassed its goal of 15,000 friends in its first two weeks. At the conclusion of the three-month campaign, the Gamekillers MySpace group had more than 75,000 friends and 1.5 million page views. The MySpace network said ???The AXE/Gamekillers program has been, by far, one of the most powerful campaigns we???ve done.??? The average MySpace profile has 120 friends. All 14 Gamekiller profiles had at least six times that amount. In the first week alone, Gamekiller forums generated more than 300 audience comments, nearly all of which incorporated Gamekillers vernacular. By the campaign???s conclusion, more than 3,600 comments had been made - more than triple the original goal.

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Education Division Awards

EDUCATION DIVISION, COMMUNITY CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…MAPS: MEDIA ARTS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS!

Website: www.mediarts.org

The Challenge
MAPS???: Media Arts in the Public Schools was founded in 2004 and their mission is to educate and create quality jobs for youth. MAPS also encourages entrepreneurship and community based economic development; 40% of their revenue comes from fee-based client services. Their partner/employees are 14 - 18 years old. The teens??? work, however, receives national recognition from both the public and private sectors. MAPS??? challenge (joy) was to communicate that kids are doing amazing things.

The Ingenious Proposal
MAPS??? program goal and objective: to educate and create quality jobs for youth. To achieve this goal they encourage and develop a student???s creative voice, communication ability and confidence. And by combining these skills with character building tools - teamwork, leadership, critical thinking, problem solving ??? they are able to deliver a measurable return on human and capital investment.

Their direct audience is the businesses and citizens of Montana. However, since they have a (modest) national reach, they wanted to make their messaging as accessible as possible to as wide an audience as possible.

The Call
The MAPS program has two interwoven modules - the creative section and the business component. In the creative process they operate in a horizontal hierarchy; the students share all facets of the creative process (story development, screenwriting etc.) on an even playing field, and this creative freedom stimulates their enthusiasm, confidence and fulfillment. The business section, i.e., the financial responsibilities involved in the production of their films becomes a vertical hierarchy. The students have specific roles (producers, directors, art department, special effects, accounting etc.) and the teacher???s role becomes similar to a studio head whereby a green-lighted project must satisfy professional processes, standards and accountability. PRIMARY TOOLS: DV and Film Cameras, editing stations using Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premier, and Sony Vegas. Writing stations use Movie Magic Software.

The Success Story
MAPS??? primary measurements encompass the interest, dedication and commitment shown by the students, their ability to comprehend and complete classroom assignments as well as the execution and quality of their final product. MAPS also relies on the assessment of School Districts, School Boards, school administrators, their students, the students??? parents and community members, young and old. A real world measurement is the fact that their client base and revenues continue to grow year after year. This is due solely to the talent, creativity, commitment and passion of the young. And finally, MAPS has and will continue to receive third party endorsements from public officials and sponsor companies; their support indicates MAPS??? results are tangible and effective.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) acquired the national broadcast rights to two television and radio public service announcements (PSAs) created by MAPS and its Darby High School students. ??????In addition to the two PSAs, the MAPS students produced the powerful documentary, ???A FATAL ADDICTION???. ???A FATAL ADDICTION??? depicts the human consequences of smoking as seen through the eyes of terminally ill, life long users of tobacco and DVD???s of the video have been requested by health departments, schools and corporations across the country.

The NASFAA (National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators) hired the MAPS Corvallis program to create and produce a national ad campaign. Starting this December, the NASFAA campaign (television and radio) will air in 38 states. The students produced two ads: one directed at the youth audience, the other to their parents and encourages high school students to go to college and offers options how to pay for it.
Previous MAPS professional assignments include ad and marketing campaigns for the Ravalli County DUI Task Force, the Marcus Daly Hospital and the Montana Student Assistance Foundation. For recent examples please see their work on the MAPS website, by clicking on the ‘video’ tab.

ACADEMIC DIVISION, VIDEO CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY MEDIA STUDIO!

Website:http://www.mediastudio.unu.edu

The Challenge
The UNU Media Studio program aims to provide students with an integrated, interdisciplinary learning experience on environmental and developmental issues that enhances their decision making and problem solving capacities while on-the-job. The e-case study concept emerged as a result of several research and development lines of inquiry within the United Nations University Media Studio: 1. What e-learning approach would better address the needs of the United Nations University training, and capacity development activities? 2. How can e-learning take a more fundamental advantage of the developments in new media technologies than current e-leaning approaches? 3. How can e-learning benefit from the contemporary best practices in media production methodologies developed in fields such as documentary filmmaking, multimedia and web design. 4. In what way can e-learning be developed so that a single product can be used in a variety of instructional settings? An examination of the contemporary best practice both in terms of the theory of learning and educational technologies, coupled with an analysis of the requirement and particular characteristics of the training and capacity building activities of the United Nations University, focused our attention on the notion of e-case studies.

The Ingenious Proposal
Development of a digital online case study in line with the case study method of teaching and learning as pioneered by Harvard University. This method has been successfully implemented by universities around the world to train students on a broad range of subjects. Within this methodology, a case tells the story of the events leading the protagonist to an important decision concerning a problem, challenge, issue or opportunity. The whole experience is told using a combination of storytelling, interviews with the protagonists, factual and contextual data, and other information resources, if necessary, such as graphics and maps.

The Call
The UNU Media Studio produced a full-fledged e-case study prototype in collaboration with academics from the University of Guadalajara in Mexico. The e-case study deals with environmental pollution and restoration issues in the Ayuquila River watershed in Western Mexico, and it was developed using a combination of Macromedia Flash, .xml and .html technologies. It can be accessed online at this address: http://www.onlinelearning.unu.edu/ayuquila/main.html; To build the case study, they first identified a story that was interesting as a narrative, as well as one that led itself to the discussion of current hot topics in environmental science. For subject matter expertise they worked in collaboration with academics from the Manantlan Institute of Ecology and Conservation of Biodiversity of Mexico???s University of Guadalajara, a group of researchers that have more than 15 years of experience doing research, education and extension activities in the Ayuquila River watershed in Western Mexico. Main principles they set to follow for the development of the prototype were: Learn by discovery and exploration. Portray perspectives of multiple stakeholders, especially when they contradict each other. Realism - allow the learner to see, hear and experience by himself as much as possible the realities of the field. Contextualize content. Promote meaningful and relevant knowledge. A final notion that guided the design of the prototype was that of layers of content. Initially they thought the e-case prototype would be composed exclusively of the geography-based exploratory environment. They decided it would be helpful for the study of the case to have both a more superficial and also a deeper level of content than that. The first layer of content then would be an overview of the story where the major topics and stakeholders were introduced in a very straightforward manner. The second layer of content was to be provided by the exploratory environment. And the third layer of content, the deepest level, was for scientific information.

The Success Story
The e-case study is being utilized by students at the University of Guadalajara and at Wisconsin Madison University. It is studied and then discussed in class by students and teachers. The real life experience presented in the cases gives the lecturer the opportunity to introduce a variety of theoretical concepts useful to the students in their task of analyzing, discussing and generating solutions to the situation portrayed in the case.

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Corporate Blog Division Awards

CORPORATE DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…THE DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY!

Website: www.dowchemical.com

The Challenge
While Andrew Liveris, chairman and CEO of The Dow Chemical Company is a strong believer in communicating with employees, it???s nearly impossible for him to have an active dialogue with 43,000 employees operating in 175 countries. To help facilitate meaningful discussion among these employees, Dow launched an internal blog for Andrew, called Access Andrew. Launching Access Andrew, however, was fraught with risk and questions. Would Liveris and the blog be credible among Dow’s people? What if blog postings leaked to the media? How could Dow keep the dialogue productive, encouraging employees and leaders to address their toughest issues? What if nobody joined the conversation? Dow built a plan to mitigate these risks and to effectively connect their leadership and employees.

The Ingenious Proposal
A fully interactive blog, Access Andrew is designed to give employees around the world an opportunity to connect directly with the company???s leader ??? and with each other. Access Andrew is intended to facilitate meaningful internal discussion about the company, its values and culture, products and goals, as well as important industry and public policy issues. Specifically, the blog is designed to achieve the following objectives: Broaden the reach of management messages to employees, make executive leadership more accessible, enable instant, direct feedback from employees, build a greater sense of community among Dow people, and help drive culture change, reinforcing openness and transparency in communications.

The Call
Dow worked with employee communication consultants Insidedge and PR agency GolinHarris to develop a strategy to introduce internal blogging at Dow:
Use research to define best practices: Insidedge and GolinHarris researched leading blogs to establish a checklist of characteristics necessary for success. These included: ease of global access; authenticity of content (written by Andrew himself); relevant and timely to key issues; and offering unique points of view, among others. Establish ground rules to guide employee participation and processes to facilitate Andrew’s involvement: Dow prepared Andrew for blogging and secured his commitment to writing his own posts and providing frequent updates. They also worked with internal communications and legal units to write clear, comprehensive guidelines and policies for blogging. Dow built a blog publication process to preserve Andrew???s voice while ensuring that necessary legal and grammatical review occurred, and to ensure a 24/7 process for reviewing and posting employee comments. Before formal launch, Dow piloted the blog with their global Public Affairs team. They educated employees about blogging and whetted their appetite for Access Andrew’s debut by posting relevant articles on the company intranet. They also positioned the blog as a six-month trial to provide an ???exit??? strategy if needed. Market the blog aggressively to drive participation: Dow tied the blog’s debut to their advertising campaign launch in Europe and used multiple media to raise awareness and drive participation. They promoted the blog with a series of posters that were unveiled at facilities around the world. They aired a video ???ad??? about the new blog on the company???s internal television system. Andrew expressed his passion for the blog at Town Hall meetings and on a quarterly global employee satellite broadcast. Be willing to tackle tough subjects: Honest dialogue requires discussing bad news as well as good. Since his first post, Andrew has tackled a number of topics, including reporting on the annual shareholders??? meeting, addressing marketplace ???buy-out??? rumors and responding to employee posts about Dow???s work environment. Andrew continues to author the blog himself with minimal input from the legal and communications teams.

The Success Story
Metrics indicate success against Dow???s objectives:
More than 13,000 employees visit the site weekly, spending an average of nearly nine minutes on the page. Weekly visits and average visit durations have been increasing. For example, there were over 25,000 and 18,000 visits during two recent entries. Employees have posted (and Andrew has responded to) questions and concerns ranging from leadership changes to childcare options. Leaders regularly join the discussion responding to specific questions and concerns. And Andrew updates his blog regularly, on average, every 10 days.Each of Andrew???s posts net an average of 73 comments, with more than 800 employees posting more than 1,300 comments since the blog’s launch. The blog has enabled employees to address one another and raise new concerns. Approximately 27 percent of employee comments respond directly to other comments. Another 35 percent relate to a new topic other than the posting topic. A month after Access Andrew’s launch, 68 percent of Dow???s employees have read the blog and 77 percent felt it has enhanced employee communications. Based on this success, Dow recently decided to maintain the blog after the six-month trial period and are evolving it.

CORPORATE DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…SUN MICROSYSTEMS!

Website: www.sun.com

The Challenge
Every quarter, public companies must fully disclose their financial earnings widely and quickly to shareholders and investors. To disclose this information broadly and in a timely manner, companies leverage a newswire service. Sun Microsystems decided to challenge the traditional disclosure method, proposing a more effective process. After communicating with the SEC and debating the issue internally, Sun decided to release its fourth quarter (Q4) and full 2007 fiscal year earnings announcement via the company’s Website, which, in turn was disseminated via open syndication protocols (namely, RSS) to those subscribers of Sun’s news feeds. After publication to the Internet, Sun then distributed this information via traditional news wires for dissemination to private news agencies and distribution vehicles. Was Sun in violation of Reg FD? No, and they did not face negative repercussions. The release of Sun’s fiscal year ‘07 earnings via the company’s Website proved that using the Internet as a vehicle to ensure broad, fair and non-exclusionary access to information about corporate performance is effective. The full disclosure of a public company???s financials via a corporate Website attracts a varied audience. In this particular case, Sun Microsystems was hoping to garner the attention of not only its shareholders, but also the SEC and the larger corporate community.

The Ingenious Proposal
Through the disclosure of the financial information via a blog and RSS feed from the company???s website, Sun’s intentions were to: increase the transparency of Sun; allow the general investing public - those with a web browser or a cell phone - the same footing as those with access to private subscription services; fulfill their desire to disseminate information on a fair and equitable basis; allow the network to be used for what it’s intended - connecting people and information; change how Sun communicates with the world; and, set a path for other public companies striving for greater transparency.

The Call
Sun believes that with the rise of technology we should allow the network to be used for what it’s intended - connecting people and information. Sun’s release of financial information via its Web site and RSS feed would be an adjustment for investors and stakeholders who were only familiar with how this type of information was being released via the newswire, but it would allow for the information to be disseminated more quickly to a wider audience. In order to begin preparing the larger corporate community for this, Sun took proactive steps to inform key stakeholders. This process could not have occurred if it were not for the various conversations, regarding Reg FD, that Sun executives had and continue to have with SEC Chairman Christopher Cox regarding Reg FD. In an effort to prepare for the release of Sun’s fiscal year ‘07 financial earnings via the Internet, Sun remained transparent in their actions. Chief executive officer, Jonathan Schwartz, led the way in this transparency by openly blogging about how Sun would release their financial information in July. He communicated the company’s rationale, and allowed for dialogue to occur among his readers. Some applauded his initiative to change the disclosure methods, while others were skeptical of the reason the Company was choosing to release via the Web earlier than the wire. Nonetheless, the Company’s intentions were clear and, if nothing else, it got people talking about Reg FD. Schwartz wasn’t the only executive to blog about Sun’s decision to disclose their financial information differently. Michael Dillon, Sun’s general counsel, also dedicated one of his blog entries to Reg FD. As he describes in his blog entry, “in the area of securities regulation, being ‘innovative’ is not always considered positively.” However, Sun’s goal of disseminating information quickly to a broad audience was very much aligned with the expectations of the SEC.

The Success Story
Sun received feedback both internally and externally regarding their new approach to full disclosure. Through Jonathan Schwartz’s blog, Sun was able to measure how key stakeholders felt about the innovative approach in disclosure. One comment thanked Schwartz for “driving [the Company] to the right direction,” while applauding him for clearly demonstrating how insights from operational effectiveness can help achieve the Company’s strategy. Alex Simpson, a reader of Mike Dillon’s blog, commented about Reg FD by applauding Sun’s efforts to “move the disclosure regime out of the 1990’s.” He continued by commending Sun for being at the forefront of pushing the envelope and encouraging evolution of out-dated processes. The qualitative comments received by Sun specifically map back to the Company’s original objectives. One Sun blog comment sums it up best by stating, “The way I receive and process information is changing on a daily basis. This increased distribution channel will engage a different audience in a different way, and that is a positive thing. Sun’s success in its blogging program exceeds using it as a tool to inform stakeholders about the Company’s changes to Reg FD.??? To date, Sun has 4,000 employees who are creating a Sun culture of transparency and openness through their blogs.

CORPORATE DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO… AIRWIDE SOLUTIONS, INC.!

Website: www.airwidesolutions.com; http://www.mobilemessaging2.com/

The Challenge
Airwide Solutions, providing mobile infrastructure systems that help mobile users send picture and text messages securely, is on the front lines of new handheld technology. On an impressive growth track with hundreds of employees in 10 international offices and multi-million dollar sales, Airwide wanted to expand its relationships and attract the attention of industry analysts and journalists. They also wanted to make a bigger impact on the conference circuit, and get more recognition in North America. In April 2007, they decided to re-engineer their traditional approach to public relations, taking it to a new level in a universe they weren???t leveraging enough, the web. First and foremost, Airwide wanted to be an active part of the online conversation in the field of mobile messaging, drawing experts??? attention to their solutions. They knew that more industry recognition would lead to an even better reputation, and that bigger revenues would follow.

The Ingenious Proposal
Airwide first developed five specific goals: To raise awareness about Airwide on the web, in particular in the US, to build deeper relationships with industry analysts, to build deeper relationships with journalists, to be invited to speak at industry conferences, and to win an industry award. Other projected benefits included enhancing Airwide???s reputation, helping with product development, and increasing Airwide???s reach for new product launch and company announcements. Airwide wanted to reach everyone interested in mobile content, whether professionals, amateurs, or even those searching for a relevant keyword. This included industry analysts from the top firms, journalists from offline publications, experts in the space, and executives from competing companies. Airwide decided to create a blog, written by industry experts, to achieve these goals. The target customers are enterprises that buy messaging software and content. The interested end-users are people who aim to get the most out of their phone.

The Call
An editorially independent blog, written by industry experts (as opposed to company employees), is different from the usual corporate blog. It establishes more credibility because it shows the sponsor is willing to relinquish control of the message and instead simply support and participate in the industry conversation. This paradigm shift in the purpose of marketing and PR is extremely hard for most companies. Showing true vision, Airwide embraced the concept readily. Airwide retained MarketHum, a social media consultancy, to build an editorially independent group blog in the mobile content category. In May 2007, the Mobile Messaging 2.0 Thought Leadership Community, sponsored by Airwide, was created by MarketHum co-founder Francois Gossieaux at http://www.mobilemessaging2.com . MarketHum engaged freelance creatives to create a brand identity for the new blog, which was built in WordPress and hosted by Corante. As acting editorial director, Corante founder Hylton Joliffe recruited experts to become contributing group bloggers. One month after launch, the blog already featured 40 posts and 30 comments. The contributor base includes: Imran Ali, mobile industry entrepreneur and software developer, Nancy Broden, Longtime mobile user experience specialist, Darla Mack, well-known commentator on mobile consumer applications, Debi Jones, mobile industry observer, researcher and commentator, Paul Ruppert, consultant and senior executive in the mobile industry, Chetan Sharma, wireless expert and industry advisor, Russell Shaw, veteran technology and telephony industry journalist and author, Ewan Spence, prominent technology writer, blogger and podcaster, and Oliver Starr, senior mobile analyst for Guidewire. As a sponsor, Airwide sees their branding and a link to their site from the blog, and Airwide executives are encouraged periodically to write a sponsored post, which shows up on the blog in a special format to indicate that the contribution is part of the corporate sponsorship. Ongoing project management consists of a weekly editorial call with the thought leader bloggers and a weekly update call with executives from Airwide, MarketHum, and Hubbub PR, a MarketHum business partner.

The Success Story
Since its inception 5 months ago, the blog boasts 200 posts, 200 substantive comments, and 24,000 total unique visitors (data from Google Analytics). Currently attracting 8,500 page views per month, the blog also has 200 RSS subscribers. It is ranked within the top 40,000 blogs on Technorati and has been linked to by more than 125 websites. In a keyword search for the category name ???mobile messaging,??? the blog shows up as a top- ten result in Google. In addition to the increased awareness, reputation and reach resulting from this success, the blog has attracted prominent analysts and journalists as both contributors to and readers of the blog. As an example, Om Malik, one of the best-known mobile telephony journalists in the world, has read and linked to us. The blog has already led to at least two speaking opportunities for the Airwide CTO in front of major audiences. This coming October, the thought leaders will convene for a bloggers??? dinner the night before the major industry event for mobile telephony. Shortly thereafter, they will participate in a conference call in which Airwide will share and get expert input on product development and marketing strategy for 2008.

CORPORATE DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…APPROVA WITH DBC PUBLIC RELATIONS EXPERTS!

Website: www.approva.net

The Challenge
Gathering momentum in the days after the Enron and WorldComm scandals and the ensuing passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislation, Approva was uniquely positioned to capitalize on the changing regulatory environment for corporations. Approva is a software developer supporting publicly-traded companies and assisting them in their efforts to meet compliance requirements, such as SOX. With many big-name competitors also offering compliance solutions, Approva had little visibility among key third-party influencers. To address these issues, the executive team sought to increase Approva???s thought leadership in the governance, risk and compliance space, while driving sales leads and enhancing Approva???s corporate market valuation. Thus, the challenge was to package Approva???s offerings in a compelling light, particularly by using industry news topics, such as the 5th Anniversary of the passing of SOX legislation, in a creative manner to garner interest in traditionally lackluster topics.

The Ingenious Proposal
DBC Public Relations (DBC), along with the marketing team at Approva, developed an innovative blog for Approva, titled Audit Trail. The goals of the blog were to expand the depth of external communication by soliciting and posting original, creative content elements; position Approva as a thought leader in regulatory compliance; increase web traffic to approva.net and Audit Trail, and attract 1,000 visitors in the initial 3 months; strengthen corporate messaging; create and increase visibility for Approva in SOX/Compliance media; leverage industry hot topics within the public relations campaign; increase search engine visibility; and, integrate with all other marketing vehicles, including e-blasts, traditional media, and advertising.

The Call
For the creation of Audit Trail, the main focus was to leverage a campaign theme that resonated with the much maligned audit community, often typecast as dowdy, serious, and often, dreaded visitors among the business community. Approva and DBC collaborated, and Approva???s Love a Good Audit campaign theme was born. The Love a Good Audit theme not only highlighted Approva???s value proposition to the market, but also upended typical assumptions about audits, and auditors. Although the campaign theme claims Approva is all about fun & games, Audit Trail is far from party central. Audit Trail???s core purpose is to serve as a dedicated forum for Approva to share news, insights, and executive commentary on industry issues essential to differentiating Approva from their competition. A blog editorial calendar was created to drive content creation, which included elements such as: daily news round-ups of important industry developments; Weird Wednesday, news related to odd or offbeat accounting stories; executive team opinion pieces, posted bi-monthly; advisory board opinion pieces, posted as available; customer case studies and commentary; and breaking news commentary and insights. In addition to content, a blog linking strategy was implemented to increase Audit Trail???s ranking on blog search engines, such as Technorati. The top 20 blogs in the space were identified by DBC and added to Audit Trail???s industry blog roll. Each blog was then contacted, introducing them to Audit Trail, providing links to poignant original content as well as encouraging them to link to Audit Trail, thus increasing the industry blog community. In addition to regular blog editorial content, during the month of July 2007, Audit Trail hosted a campaign celebrating the 5th anniversary of the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley Legislation. The homepage of Audit Trail prominently displayed a countdown clock until the 5th birthday of SOX on July 30th. Major campaign elements during this month on Audit Trail included: compliance survey to public company executives; delivery of birthday cake to former Congressman Michael Oxley, co-founder of SOX; industry expert commentary blog postings; an original SOX 5th Birthday Song and music video; press releases and press outreach; a SOX 5th Birthday eCard; and various postings related to five-years of SOX history.

The Success Story
Since its launch, the Audit Trail blog has blown away every metric defined by DBC and the Approva, and it continues to gather momentum. In seven months, Audit Trail has seen 26,861 visitors. They expected a slow build and anticipated 1,000 visitors in the first three months. By the end of April, they had exceeded their goal by 400%, with 4,000 visitors. As a result of an Approva eBlast promoting the SOX 5th Birthday Celebration kit, Audit Trail set a single-day traffic record of 2,791, quadrupling the previous record. During the month of July, Approva received media coverage in seven targeted trade publications. Links to other blogs have increased dramatically, from zero in March to 71 in September. Search engine visibility is directly below that of SEC and other industry organizations on key issues. Executive and breaking news commentary is working, with 810 clicks into the Audit Trail coverage of the PCAOB SOX guidance in May. Original content was contributed by executive team leaders, such as Approva???s CEO, Phil Livingston (former head of FEI and an author of the original Sarbanes-Oxley legislation) and Harvey Pitt (SEC chair at the time of Sarbanes-Oxley???s passage). In addition, presidential candidate Ron Paul submitted a Q&A to Audit Trail during the SOX 5th Anniversary month in July. The blog has also increased its Technorati authority from 0 to 71, and has garnered attention from trade media, securing 7 media placements in July alone.

CORPORATE DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…THE BIVINGS GROUP!

Website: www.bivings.com

The Challenge
The Bivings Group lacked a medium for showcasing the company’s projects, publishing research and reports, and discussing issues in new media, technology and politics that are relevant to the company’s projects and clients. To resolve this problem and to provide the company with a flexible platform, The Bivings Group developed a corporate blog called The Bivings Report.

The Ingenious Proposal
The Bivings Group decided to create a blog that would serve as a source of news, insight, research and analysis on the web-based communications industry. They tailored their blogging efforts to several key audiences: members of the traditional media industries (newspaper and magazine publishers), representatives from politics interested in online developments, potential clients, and individuals interested in emerging Web 2.0 technology. The goals of The Bivings Group’s corporate blog were to find new business opportunities, garner attention for media research, showcase the company’s abilities and quality work in new technology, and solicit feedback and commentary from audience members.

The Call
The Bivings Group implemented a corporate blog as an extension of its main website called The Bivings Report. Tapping in-house design, programming, and communications professionals, The Bivings Group built the blog in WordPress, an open-source system, and customized the blog with various types of new technology to serve the company’s needs. Specifically, they used video, podcasts, sharing tools, and wikis on their corporate blog to demonstrate the company’s capabilities in Web 2.0. Finally, The Bivings Group used its corporate blog to develop a library of research materials and written reports relevant to new media and politics. By publishing these materials on a blog, they are easily accessible and available to the public.

The Success Story
The Bivings Report has been an extremely productive tool for The Bivings Group. Publishing articles consistently on a near daily basis, The Bivings Report has grown to become one of the top “public affairs” blogs in the USA. They have also received several new business opportunities and numerous press inquiries through the blog. Most recently, The Bivings Report was recognized by the Web Marketing Association for the high quality of technology and content employed on the blog and received a Blog Standard of Excellence award. The Bivings Report has given the Bivings Group an opportunity to expand upon and develop its corporate identity online through discussion, written expression, and graphic design.

CORPORATE DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…MIDWEST AIRLINES!

Website: www.midwestairlines.com; http://girlfriendsgetaway.wordpress.com

The Challenge
The challenge was in deciding if Midwest Airlines should begin a corporate blog. If so, what purpose would it serve and how would it enhance their business? Should it be a CEO blog for the investor community or airline industry buffs? Or should it focus on their customers, who are at the core of Midwest Airlines??? service-intensive business philosophy?

The Ingenious Proposal
After researching the blogosphere and how it is used, Midwest Airlines chose a customer-focused blog, narrowing it down to baby-boomer women who now have the time and money to travel and enjoy getting away with girlfriends. The blog is service-oriented in that it offers travel information, details about destinations to which Midwest flies, costs, reviews of hotels, restaurants, shops and more from the personal perspective of the blogger — who plans the trip, takes it with a girlfriend or two, then shares details with readers. All travelers can find value in the posts. It is a low-profile corporate blog, but coded links to Midwest Airlines show a very good ROI in ticket sales. The main goal was to enhance their service offerings to customers with a focused travel blog that offers useful information on how to plan a successful getaway with friends. It covers unusual destinations in and around cities served by Midwest Airlines. Details may include how to get around town, what cabs or rental cars cost, hotel reviews and how the blogger found the best rates. The blogger tells readers what she and her friends liked and disliked. The goal of each post is to make it easier for women (especially those who have never taken a girlfriend getaway) to feel confident in planning or participating in one. Consideration for limited budgets is also part of the mix — finding decent hotels at a good value, bargain shopping opportunities, using public transportation where feasible, etc. Basically, the blog extends Midwest Airlines’ reputation for providing outstanding care for its customers. No goals based on financial return were set, but it was anticipated that some would occur. The effort was more of a service and networking opportunity for the airline brand.

The Call
Once a niche market and blog style was chosen, the plan was to find the best blogging tool. Midwest Airlines settled on Wordpress, hosted on the Wordpress site — no cost was involved and the site could be easily managed by the blogger. The goal was to have the site functional by 9/1/06 with several posts already published to minimize the “empty look” of a brand new blog site. A number of trips were taken by the blogger before the launch to ensure a number of posts would be in the queue. The header is original art designed by a staff artist. Some technical assistance with launching the blog was provided by Midwest’s E-Business team and Marketing’s production specialist. A news release was sent out by Midwest Airlines, announcing the blog launch. The blogger regularly interacts on other blog sites for networking, and a link to the blog lives on the Midwest Airlines Deals Web page. It also appears in weekly customer e-mails and monthly newsletters to Midwest Miles members.

The Success Story
Travels with Tish — Girlfriends’ Getaway Guide has been continually updated for 13 months. Readership has steadily grown. Reader interaction through comments and e-mails has been very good. Readers consistently click through to the numerous links provided to access additional topic information and to buy tickets from Midwest Airlines. The ROI has been excellent, providing approximately a 6:1 return, though much more return can be assumed that may have been triggered by the blog, but booked using alternative methods. Their objective of providing a meaningful service to female travelers has been met, as positive reader response indicates. Their niche market is baby-boomer women, but they have found that men and women of all ages are tuning in to read the posts. While they anticipated that some additional ticket sales would be generated, they had no defined goal. Consequently, the resulting revenue has been an overwhelming success and an enhancement to their original purpose. Moving forward, the blogger is currently designing a more interactive blog site for Travels with Tish, using Joomla on an independent hosting service. It will retain the original artwork and feel, but offer more travel information and opportunities to share experiences. She will incorporate a women’s travel forum and more information about group travel opportunities. Additionally, she will include a segment for those who want to travel with their dog (also a growing niche market in which Midwest Airlines is already an industry leader with its Premier Pet Program.) The URL for the new site will be shorter and easier to remember — travelswithtish.com.

CORPORATE DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…MOBILE TOP LEVEL DOMAIN (DOT MOBI)!

Website: www.mtld.mobi; dotmobi.typepad.com

The Challenge
Launched in 2006, .mobi (dotMobi) is a top-level domain for the mobile Internet. It is the first domain that sets design rules so that any .mobi site is guaranteed to present well on a mobile phone???s two-inch screen (examples include http://businessweek.mobi, http://cabbies.mobi, and http://aaa.mobi/). Every launch of any top-level domain is bound to be controversial (note past attempts to launch domains such as .xxx or .geo.). In 2006, dotMobi sought out a way to deflect criticism early and strive to be the most transparent of any of the new top-level domains ever launched. They decided to create a blog.

The Ingenious Proposal
At the program???s start, the objective was to insert dotMobi as a credible participant in online discussions about the mobile Internet (often a sticky situation where corporate interests are concerned) and, in so doing, elevate dotMobi???s ability to influence conversations about its brand and mission. The audience, at the very early stage, was so-called ???domainers??? or people and organizations who make money buying and selling domain names on the Internet. Since dotMobi was utilizing some fairly novel processes for distributing these domain names (such as auctions for premium names and enforcing a sunrise period for trademark holders), this communication was critical. Also, the team knew that having dotMobi create its own platform to engage in online conversation would correct misconceptions about the company in those communities as well as in the in the press. Essentially, dotMobi built its FAQ online and in public via the blog.

The Call
One thing was clear, traditional technology PR approaches simply weren???t going to work in this case since dotMobi needed to interact with a community that primarily trusts their own, so dotMobi enlisted the help of Edelman, a global PR agency. The first strategy was to prepare dotMobi???s key employees with best-in-class training in how to engage with online communities. The next step was to leverage each employee???s expertise. After training, dotMobi employees were assigned ebeats. The VP of Business Development, for example, handled mobile-marketing-related topics, the director of industry relations covered auction and sales-related matters, the CTO offered technical perspectives, and so on. Once dotMobi???s internal bloggers were trained and assigned, the agency provided monitoring of popular blogs, online communities, and message boards. In each case, criteria was developed to determine whether a response from dotMobi. The agency took this information and provided counsel, which the dotMobi bloggers took into consideration while writing their posts or reactions. This approach allowed dotMobi to not only be proactive and transparent in its communication, but to also counter broad misinformation with context, expertise, and insight. The results can be seen at http://dotmobi.typepad.com. Since time was of the essence, the team chose to speed deployment using trusted off-the-shelf parts. Part of the beauty of what Forbes once referred to as ???the cheap revolution??? is that excellent Web 2.0 communications tools are available for free or nearly free. TypePad Pro was selected for its ease of use and customization, as well as its integration with several Web 2.0 tools. The team used pre-Google Feedburner to enhance the measurability of the blog???s RSS feed and ensure that it could determine whether subscribership grew over time. Recognizing that not all or even most Internet users are using RSS, the team used FeedBlitz to generate an opt-in newsletter from the RSS feed. To-date, the blog???s email subscribership continues to be one-third of the total, even in a technically focused field.

The Success Story
The dotMobi blog, available at http://dotmobi.typepad.com/ consistently enjoys 55-60 links from unique blogs in any trailing-180-day period. This is quite comparable to blogs that discuss the domain industry from a more journalistic basis, which tend to enjoy between 50-150 such links. Such sites include blogs like Domain News, Domain Name News, and I Squatted Your .EU. Subscribership has grown to a seven-day moving average of well over 550 unique subscribers. The team decided early on that pageviews was not the best ???or even a good??? metric since the full-text RSS feed obviates the need to visit the site in most cases. Each post inspires an average of between three and five comments from the blog???s visitors, indicating that interest is high and the public is engaged. Most importantly, however, the dotMobi blog has changed many minds about the .mobi domain and, as such, remains the most transparently managed and communicated domain to-date of the newer ones supported by ICANN in the past several years.

CORPORATE DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…NORTEL NETWORKS!

Website: www.nortel.com

The Challenge
In 2006, Nortel appointed John Roese as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) with a mandate to lead Nortel???s technology innovation engine and become the functional leader for Nortel???s more than 12,000 engineers and developers around the world. With a passionate and outspoken technology leader helming its R&D initiatives, Nortel saw an opportunity to enhance its thought leadership position and initiate an on-going dialog about technology, innovation, the telecom industry and Nortel.

The Ingenious Proposal
Nortel???s technologies are designed to help eliminate today’s barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people to the information they need, when they need it. Nortel set out to implement a blog, written by John Roese, which espoused those values and encouraged a direct, immediate dialogue with one of its key executives. Nortel implemented John Roese???s blog with three key business and communications objectives in mind: 1. Build a credible communications vehicle for direct interaction and dialogue with customers, partners, and other stakeholders. 2. Promote industry thought leadership in areas important to Nortel. 3. Enhance the awareness of Nortel as an innovative, transparent and cutting-edge telecommunications company. The primary audiences for John Roese???s blog are Nortel???s customers, partners, investors and employees. They are the stakeholders with the keenest interest in Nortel???s technologies, opinions and industry. Secondary audiences include industry influences such as analysts and media.

The Call
Nortel leveraged its integrated marketing communications team to develop and deploy a blog written by John Roese. A proposal and justification for developing the blog was submitted in November 2006 and an aggressive timeline was set to deploy the blog in early 2007. The overall plan was to: design, develop and deploy a text blog focused primarily on technology and innovation that conveys John Roese???s unfiltered opinion, personality, and thought leadership; have John Roese write technology-related content in an accessible manner so that anyone can participate in the conversation; hyperlink heavily within the blog to relevant photos, podcasts, videos and vlogs to encourage community building and provide non-Nortel content and perspectives; launch the blog in early to mid-January to coincide with the launch of the new Technology section on nortel.com; announce the blog internally and on nortel.com, but allow external interest to grow virally; and, post new entries every 7-10 days to keep updates frequent but not consume too much of John Roese???s time. There were some technical and logistical challenges to overcome when developing the blog: designing and developing Nortel???s first blog quickly while working with a relatively new medium for the company; managing expectations on frequency of updates - John Roese???s dynamic and hectic schedule prevents him from writing as often as he or the communications and marketing teams would like; guaranteeing a quick turnaround for reviews and approvals from subject matter experts (as needed) and the legal department. Nortel decided to use WordPress, a free open source blogging platform. The team included John Roese, CTO, Nortel Velma LeBlanc, Director, CTO Communications, Janet Chan, New Media Communications, and Laurie Borgen, Online Marketing.

The Success Story
John Roese???s blog has successfully addressed Nortel???s challenges and goals. Success is measured quantitatively through unique visitors, RSS subscriptions, percentage of engagement, and number of trackbacks. Additional qualitative measures include content and quality of reader comments and word-of-mouth communications about the company. The blog allows John Roese to share his thoughts and opinions on industry, technology and on Nortel directly. He writes the blog himself and this authenticity has resulted in credibility. The blog has received 72,154 unique visitors and garnered 487 feed subscribers since its launch. It has received trackbacks from Tom Foremski???s IMHO and Slashdot, among others. John Roese has used his blog to effectively promote and discuss Nortel???s thought leadership endeavors, from Hyperconnectivity to 4G to video???s impact on the Internet. Nortel stakeholders have weighed in on these topics by sharing 302 comments and opinions directly with John. As with any discussion, not everyone agrees with these positions. But John Roese???s blog has facilitated their dissemination on his blog and elsewhere. In September 2007, John penned a guest column about 4G technology on GigaOM, a widely read telecommunications blog.

CORPORATE DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…PORTER NOVELLI!

Website: www.porternovelli.com

The Challenge
Each year, Porter Novelli supports the HP Workstations business unit at SIGGRAPH, the International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, in organizing public relations activities. SIGGRAPH attracts approximately 24,000 attendees including artists, research scientists, gaming experts, developers, filmmakers, academics and leading editors and analysts from 79 countries. The challenge for SIGGRAPH 2007 was garnering press coverage and online buzz for HP Workstations products in the absence of new product announcements.

The Ingenious Proposal
Porter Novelli proposed to the HP Workstations team that they create a video blog and leverage HP???s??? sponsorship of the SIGGRAPH animator competition FJORG! Co-sponsored by DreamWorks Animation SKG and AMD, FJORG! featured 15 three-person computer graphics animation teams from around the world competing in a 32-hour competition to create the best 15 second or longer animation using HP xw9400 Workstations. The goal was to generate awareness for the FJORG! competition and the HP Workstations brand through online media and Consumer Generated Media.

The Call
HP kicked off SIGGRAPH 2007 with the launch of http://workstations.tv, a video weblog designed to celebrate the broad array of products and services created using HP workstation technology. The workstations.tv weblog hosted video coverage of FJORG! including all of the animations created during the event as well as exclusive interviews with the animation teams.

The Success Story
SIGGRAPH 2007 was a success from both a PR and Consumer Generated Media standpoint. Using workstations.tv and partnering with SIGGRAPH, AMD and DreamWorks Animation SKG, the team was able to successfully leverage HP???s??? sponsorship of FJORG! to showcase the benefits of HP Workstation technology in the digital content creation space. PR raised the bar at SIGGRAPH 2007, with new media tactics that increased awareness and buzz about HP Workstations, workstations.tv and the FJORG! Competition. These tactics included: Creating and posting FJORG! event trailers on workstations.tv and YouTube; editing and posting 21 supplemental videos on YouTube promoting workstations.tv; generating over 30 press stories and blog entries, and over 10,000 YouTube views in the first 400+ backlinks to workstations.tv; conducting 8 face-to-face press briefings; securing 3 additional phone briefings; collaborating with DreamWorks Animation and SIGGRAPH PR to jointly promote workstations.tv in three event press releases, including two led by SIGGRAPH and DreamWorks; positioning workstations.tv as the main site for viewing FJORG! activities and winning animations; and securing day-of-launch blog coverage on DigitalContentProducer.com, a top tier target for HP Workstations.

CORPORATE DIVISION, BLOG CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…MICROSOFT AND WAGGENER EDSTROM WORLDWIDE!

Website: www.waggeneredstrom.com

The Challenge
The Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) is Microsoft???s premier event targeted to its 400,000 member-strong partner community. With over 7,200 partners worldwide in attendance each year, WPC is designed to help partners drive profitability and reach their business goals, whatever they may be; expanding their skills, increasing business opportunities, closing more sales, or supporting their customers more effectively. Only elite partners are invited to WPC. Every year the event is sold out with thousands of people not being able to attend. These partners are already on board with Microsoft, so the primary need is to get actionable, partner specific information out on a global basis to those who can???t attend.

The Ingenious Proposal
For WPC 2007, Waggonner???s goal was to deliver a breakthrough digital strategy via a blog titled ???Digital WPC??? that would map to Microsoft???s objectives: showcase MSPP program value; demonstrate partner opportunity via Microsoft Business Group product news; explain Software+Services framework for partners; deliver breakthrough digital strategy; enlist Partners to share their experience at WPC (blogging) and satisfaction with MSPP (video testimonials); broaden the annual campus visit program beyond channel press; expand international coverage; and increase local market coverage as a means of reinforcing WPC messages to Partners in attendance. For WPC 2007 Microsoft wanted to expand their reach and awareness to partners worldwide (as well as press and analysts) through one platform to showcase the richness and value of partner resources and opportunity, and provide a forum for those unable to attend the conference to experience key activities such as exec keynotes/speeches/videos virtually. Digital WPC seemed a perfect vehicle to achieve the objective of delivering a breakthrough digital strategy, the first of its kind at WPC, and enlist US and international partners to share their experiences at WPC via blogs, from a third party lens.

The Call
In an effort to expand conference reach to a broader audience including delegates, press, analysts, and partners not able to attend, Waggener Edstrom???s Microsoft Small and Midmarket Solutions and Businesses PR team and Digital Strategies Group (DSG) created Digital WPC. Video was a major component of the site and focused on the executive keynotes that included Steve Ballmer, Kevin Turner, Allison Watson, Chris Capossela, Mike Sievert, Andy Lees, Steve Guggenheimer, Sanjay Parthasarathy, Tami Reller, Simon Witts, and Maria Martinez. Each emphasized how Microsoft delivers new opportunities to partners through software plus services, the ongoing momentum behind Office 2007, Windows Vista and Exchange Server 2007 as well as the next wave of innovation through BizTalk Server 2006 R2 and the upcoming launches of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. Key solutions included the following: Digital WPC was showcased in Influential communiques with press and analysts, press releases, encouraging press/analysts to visit the site. They generated awareness with business groups through weekly updates, which included a very visible URL to Digital WPC in all WPC related mails. DSG built an Outlook Signature for Waggener Edstrom and Microsoft highlighting Digital WPC. We cross-linked Digital WPC to the Microsoft WPC registration page, PressPass and the Virtual Press Room. We seeded Digital WPC with Microsoft internal and US/international Microsoft partner bloggers, letting them know about the Digital WPC and encouraging them to blog about the content. We also purchased a small Search Engine advertisement on MSN, Yahoo and Google.

The Success Story
The Digital WPC site surpassed all expectations. More than 50,300 Microsoft Partners have visited the community site since the start of the conference. In less than three weeks, they exceeded (100.7%) the original 3-month goal of 50,000 visits. In the end, the program results surpassed expectations in each work stream category. Total worldwide coverage grew by 56%. International coverage grew by 210%. Most importantly, quality of coverage rose significantly year-over-year, with message pull-through at an all-time event high of 93.2%. Key observations are summarized below: Extremely targeted community: to date the site has had more than 70,000 visitors, with more than half of those qualified partners. Strong community presence: the integration of partner blogs captured an additional 6,000 visits. These partner blogs provided 3rd party validation, proving credibility for Digital WPC. Blog activity via Digital WPC stimulated additional, independent blogs for the duration of the event. This year, there were 82 original blogs generated by WPC, up 64% from 2006. Prolonged Interest: most sites see weekly traffic drop as much as 80% the week following the event. Digital WPC saw almost no change from week one to week two.

Popularity: 18% [?]

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Event Update: SNCR to Honor Organizations & Individuals from Around the Globe at Excellence in New Communications Awards, December 5th in Boston

The Society for New Communications Research will honor the work of five outstanding individuals, as well as leading organizations on December 5th at the 2nd Annual ???Excellence in New Communications Awards??? Gala at the Colonnade Hotel in Boston, Mass. The SNCR Awards of Excellence in New Communications recognize innovative individuals, corporations, nonprofit organizations and media outlets that are pioneering the use of social media, ICT, mobile media, online communities, virtual worlds and collaborative technologies in the areas of media, marketing, public relations, advertising, entertainment, education, politics and social initiatives.

On December 5th the Society will honor Francois Gossieaux and Hylton Joliffe of MarketHum and sister company Corante; corporate blogging pioneer Mike Dillon, general counsel and executive vice president, Sun Microsystems Inc.; educator and new media researcher Dr. Craig E. Carroll of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina, and Chido Makunike, an online journalist and blogger from Zimbabwe, working in Senegal.

In addition the SNCR will honor many leading corporations, nonprofit organizations and educational institutions.

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Popularity: 14% [?]

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Event Update: SNCR Symposium to Feature Free Workshop for Educators on December 5th in Boston

On Events

The Society for New Communications Research will hold a free workshop for educators in conjunction with its 2nd Annual Research Symposium and Awards Gala on December 5th ??? 6th at the Colonnade Hotel in Boston, Mass. The workshop is part of the Society???s education program, which brings guest lecturers, seminars and advice about curriculum development by the Society???s Fellows to colleges and universities. The Society advises faculty in Communications, Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising, Journalism and Business departments on how to revise and update curricula to address new developments in communications and new media, Web 2.0 and social media.

The workshop will be held from 9:00am ??? 12:00pm and will include an overview of the current state of the communications landscape, skills needed for changing communications careers, recommended course scope and content, syllabi and glossaries of terms. Educators are invited to attend this special workshop to discuss how to supplement core curricula with content that addresses these changes and successfully prepares students for the new world of communications.

In addition, the SNCR Symposium will feature the presentation of the Society???s Fellows??? latest research projects and winning case studies from around the world through the Society???s awards program. The full event agenda and online registration is available at http://www.sncr.org/symposium. Special pricing discounts are available for educators and students. Call (650) 331-0083 or email info@sncr.org for more information or to register.

The 2nd Annual Society for New Communications Research Symposium & Awards Gala is sponsored by the following organizations. Association Sponsors: American Marketing Association - Boston, Institute for Public Relations, Social Media Club and Public Relations Society of America ??? Boston. Corporate Sponsors include: Business Wire, ClickPress, iContact, Weber Shandwick and Wieck Media.

Popularity: 15% [?]

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SNCR Symposium & Awards Event Update: The State of Social Media Adoption in America, Global Trends, & Success Stories From Leading Organizations - Less Than 3 Weeks Away - Please Join Us

Discuss, Learn, Network & Have Fun at the 2007 SNCR Research Symposium & Awards Gala!

December 5-6, 2007 - Colonnade Hotel, Boston, MA

Don’t miss the Society’s Fellows’ latest research on social media, citizen journalism, ICT and emerging modes of communication, as well as
winning case studies from around the globe.

Please join us for this important event! We have a great program planned and special discounts are available.

Here are a few of the program highlights:

* Opening Keynote: SNCR Senior Fellow Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth - “The State of the Art in Social Media Adoption: From Colleges & Universities to America’s Largest Charities to the Inc. 500″

In this opening keynote address, SNCR Senior Fellow Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes will set the stage for the winning case studies and landmark research that will be presented during the rest of the event. Her presentation will compare data collected from more than 450 colleges and universities to other new studies on the Inc. 500 and other companies, as well as America???s largest charities to provide insight into the current state of social media adoption in the U.S.

* SNCR Research Presentation: “New Media, New Influencers & Implications for the PR Profession,” featuring SNCR Fellows John Cass, Paul Gillin, Richard Nacht, & Greg Peverill-Conti

How are organizations are defining, communicating with and measuring “new influencers,” and how they are wielding their own influence using social media and new communications tools? Hear success stories and recommendations for the PR profession.

* SNCR Senior Fellow Joseph Carrabis: “The Blogging Power Continuum: How Bloggers & Their Audiences Share & Assign Power in a Knowledge-Based Medium”

Learn new methods to create and foster healthy social behavior in this new knowledge-based medium.

* Closing Keynote: SNCR Senior Fellow Shel Israel & SNCR Corporate Member Mike Prosceno - “Global Social Media Trends” (based on the SAP Global Social Media Survey)

Join Shel and Mike as they discuss the survey results and its hopeful findings that power is moving from large central organizations into the
hands of the constituents they serve.

* Featured Case Studies: Be inspired by the diverse social media initiatives that companies like Dell, Scuderi Group, GM and Sun Microsystems are leading. Hear about the many innovative ways that social media, ICT and mobile media are being used by leading nonprofit organizations like the American Heart Association, H.E.L.P. and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. Learn how to create innovative and dynamic online communities and successful Second Life initiatives from Cisco, Coca-cola, Converseon and others.

Download the brochure for the full program and special discount codes or visit http://www.sncr.org/symposium for more information and online registration.

Popularity: 51% [?]

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SNCR Sr. Fellow Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes To Present Opening Keynote, “The State of the Art in Social Media Adoption: From Colleges & Universities & Charities to the Inc. 500” at SNCR Research Symposium & Awards Gala

On Events

The Society for New Communications Research will hold its 2nd Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on December 5-6, 2007 at the Colonnade Hotel in Boston, Mass. The event will feature the presentation of the Society???s Fellows??? latest research projects and winning case studies from around the world through the Society???s awards program.

On December 5th at 4:30pm, SNCR Senior Fellow Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D. of the University of Massachusetts will set the stage for the awards and research that will be presented during the remainder of the event with her opening keynote address, ???The State of the Art in Social Media Adoption: From Colleges & Universities & Charities to the Inc. 500.??? Dr. Barnes will compare data she collected on 453 colleges and universities’ use of social media to other new studies on the Inc. 500 and other companies, as well as America???s largest charities to provide insight into the current state of social media adoption in the U.S.

“A greater percentage of US colleges and universities use public facing blogs than the largest US corporations. Colleges and universities are blogging at a higher rate than both the Fortune 500 and the Inc. 500. And, they are using social media to research potential students as well as applicants,” according to Barnes. “The results of these studies are surprising. While some groups studied are moving cautiously into Web 2.0 technologies, others have jumped in. Some are realizing the potential of these new channels and some have a long way to go.”

Following Barnes’ presentation, the Society will hold a gala dinner to honor the 2007 Excellence in New Communications Award winners. The awards recognize innovative corporations, nonprofit organizations, media outlets and individuals who are pioneering the use of social media, ICT, mobile media, online communities, virtual worlds and collaborative technologies in the areas of marketing, public relations, advertising, politics, entertainment, education and social initiatives. The SNCR received more than 100 entries from ten countries this year.

On December 6th, the Society for New Communications Research Symposium will feature the latest research conducted by several SNCR Fellows, including:

??? John Cass, Paul Gillin, Richard Nacht and Greg Peverill-Conti ??? ???New Media, New Influencers & Implications for the PR Profession???
??? Joseph Carrabis ??? ???The Blogging Power Continuum: How Bloggers & Their Audiences Share & Assign Power in a Knowledge-Based Medium???
??? Shel Israel & SNCR Corporate Member Mike Prosceno ??? ???Social Media Global Trends Based on the SAP Global Survey

In addition, the Symposium will feature panel discussions and case studies from leading corporations, nonprofit organizations and educational institutions. The full event agenda is available at http://www.sncr.org/symposium.

The 2nd Annual SNCR Research Symposium & Awards Gala is sponsored by the following organizations. Association Sponsors: American Marketing Association - Boston, Institute for Public Relations and Public Relations Society of America ??? Boston. Corporate Sponsors include: Business Wire, ClickPress, iContact, Weber Shandwick and Wieck Media.

Don’t miss this important industry event. Register online today at http://www.sncr.org/symposium. And, make your hotel reservations at the Colonnade Hotel by November 10th by calling (617) 424-7000. Mention “SNCR Research Symposium” to take advantage of the special $169. per night SNCR rate. (Rates increase to $269. per night after 11/10.)

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A to Z of Social Media
Across the Sound Each week marketing gurus Joseph Jaffe and Steve Rubel discuss the world of new marketing, media and PR on the Across the Sound podcast. Please subscribe to our podcast using the podcatcher of your choice.
Active Voice
Active Voice
Adventures in Business Communications
Adverblog a blog about advertising and mobile marketing. It features interactive, print, tv, guerilla, mobile and outdoor campaigns from all over the world, but it has a special focus on Europe.
Andy Lark’s Blog
Angie McKaig design. geekery. business. culture
Armchair Environmentalist
Berkshire Blog
Bernaise Source Mapping the brave new world of new media, the PR profession, news & Web 2.0
Between the Lines
Blawgher.com Lawyer lady talks about life, intrigued that anyone would find such crap interesting.
Blawgher.com
Blawgzine.com Podcast Analysis and commentary on the law as it relates to evolving communications tools and technologies and the media. Hosted by Elizabeth L. Fletcher.
Blog de Octavio Isaac Rojas Orduña
BlogWrite for CEOs Debbie Weil on CEO blogs, writing a thought leadership blog..
Build a Better Podcast Beyond Self-Expression to Communication.
BusinessLogs
BuzzMachine
Church of the Customer All about word of mouth, customer evangelism and citizen marketers.
Corporate Hallucinations
Corporate PR
CorporatePR Commentary on the current and future practice of corporate public relations from Albrycht McClure & Partners (A.M.P.) Communications
Creative Conversations The Norman Agency’s Creative Director and Project Manager discuss important aspects of radio advertising creation.
Crossroads Dispatches The generalist synthesist weblog - quite often about innovations in innovation and marketing. Juxtaposing the right brain and left. Yin and yang. Analytical and intuitive. Technical and visceral. Future and in-the-now. Intersection of technology…
Cymfony’s Marketing Insight Insight on media measurement, market research, blogging and innovative technologies from Cymfony & guests
Darknet
Diary of a Shameless Self-Promoter A podcast devoted to effective self-promotion ideas hosted by Heidi Miller, a worldwide speaker and corporate presenter.
Dick Edelman
Digital Masters Digital Masters is a new audio program where experts discuss how technology is changing the business of media. Brought to you by the Ecast national network of ad-serving, digital-downloading jukeboxes in thousands of restaurants and taverns nationwide.
Doc Searls Weblog
Doc’s Podblog Where Doc Searls houses personal podcasts and show notes
Down the Avenue Bringing passion to technology, business & life
Drew B’s take on tech PR Tech PR blog - Inside opinion on the media, news, and technology pr
Duct Tape Marketing
E-communications & Community Maurene Caplan Grey explores the impact of e-communications, collaboration and new media in shaping business communities
E-communications & Community Maurene Caplan Grey explores the impact of e-communications, collaboration and new media in shaping business communities
Earshot Edelman podcast
Eastwikkers
Ecast Ecast news and press releases. Host: Eric Schwartzman
Editor’s Weblog
Engagement by Engagement A grassroots blog to chronicle developments in the advertising industry’s Engagement challenge. This blog is led by Nielsen BuzzMetrics and supported by the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA).
Engaget Podcast
Eric Rice 1
Eric Rice 2
Ether Breather Blog of Jiyan Wei
For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report A podcast from Neville Hobson & Shel Holtz a pair of communication professionals who think they have something to say. Hobson is based in Amsterdam, and Holtz is located in California. Their podcast is updated on Mondays and Thursdays.
From the Front Lines of PR
Future Tense
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IABC Cafe
IFTF’s Future Now
infOpinions
International Communications Association
Internet Marketing Voodoo
iPressroom iPressroom news and press releases. Host: Eric Schwartzman
Jaffe Juice Fresh new marketing perspective and commentary from industry thought leader and author Joseph Jaffe.
Jen McClure’s Ruminations Jen McClure Shares Her Thoughts, Ideas, Articles, Papers, Reviews, Poetry, Lyrics, Photos, Ideas, Questions, Favorite Things, Frustrations, etc.
Jupiter Research Conversations
KDPaine’s PR Measurement Blog
Like It Matters Brian Oberkirch Blog
Lubetkin’s Other Blog Steve Lubetkin comments on journalism, communications, and public relations issues of importance, and encourages a dialogue with readers. He’s a veteran public relations practitioner and a long-time national leader in the PRSA.
Marcom Blog
Marketing Begins at Home David Parmet’s Blog
Marketing Blog This marketing blog has been created to share my Marketing experiences with other marketers or anyone interested in learning more about marketing. Visit this marketing blog often for free marketing tools, information, and advice.
Marketing Edge Short, crisp, insightful ideas on marketing, processes and societal change. From brand creation to lead generation, public relations to podcasting, all with a twist of humor and dollop of common sense. Hosted by Albert Maruggi.
Marketing Voices Building Stronger Brands with Blogs, Podcasts & Wikis
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New Communications Forum
New Media Bibliography
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On the Record… Online Get the story behind the story as reporters from the mainstream media and newsmakers discuss how information technology is changing the news media and entertainment businesses.
Online Marketing Blog
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Over the River Insights from Greg Peverill- Conti
Paul Gilin’s Blog Social Media & the Open Enterprise
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Pause Jory’s thoughts while sitting still
Performancing Helping bloggers succeed
Phil’s Blogservations Started in 2001, this is the perso-professional weblog from Phil Gomes: Senior Counsel for Online Communications at Edelman and graduate student at USC Annenberg. This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil’s everyday observations about a
Phil’s Blogservations
Podcast Planet
PodCast Radio Show PodCast Marketing from the PodCast Promenade
PodSafe Music Network The best in new music and music podcasts from the creators of PodShow.com
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PR Communications
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PR Fuel
PR Machine
PR Meets the WWW
PR Opinions
PR Squared Todd Defren’s blog
PR Studies
PR2.0
Press Think - Jay Rosen
Principled Innovation Blog moving from imagination to impact
Public Journalism Network
Radar O’Reilly
Rating Agency RatingAgency.com is the first newsletter covering the people and activities of the credit rating agencies. We’ll be keeping track of personnel moves, criteria changes, and profiling the most powerful unknown players on Wall Street — the bond analysts who
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SATN
Silicon Valley Watcher
Silicon Valley Watcher
Small Biz Labs
SNCR Career Center
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Social Media Club
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Strategic PR
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Syndication for Higher Ed
Talking Communications with Farrell Kramer
Tech Media This Week The SWMS Tech Media This Week podcast
TED Blog Ideas that matter in technology, entertainment & design
Telepocalypse
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The Big Sessions Want to know what’s on the biggest minds in interactive and traditional advertising? That’s the kind of stuff The BIG Sessions will uncover in our frank, exclusive interviews with the industry’s most influential players. With Jon Raj.
The Future of Work
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The Mercury News A+E Interactive
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Web Strategy by Jeremiah Jeremiah discusses effective web strategies, customer focused marketing, emerging technologies, and other related geek-speak made simple. These thoughts are his own, and none others.
Worker Bees Blog

Important Resources:

A PR Guru’s Musings
A Shel of my Former Self
a shel of my former self
A to Z of Social Media
Across the Sound Each week marketing gurus Joseph Jaffe and Steve Rubel discuss the world of new marketing, media and PR on the Across the Sound podcast. Please subscribe to our podcast using the podcatcher of your choice.
Active Voice
Active Voice
Adventures in Business Communications
Adverblog a blog about advertising and mobile marketing. It features interactive, print, tv, guerilla, mobile and outdoor campaigns from all over the world, but it has a special focus on Europe.
Andy Lark’s Blog
Angie McKaig design. geekery. business. culture
Armchair Environmentalist
Berkshire Blog
Bernaise Source Mapping the brave new world of new media, the PR profession, news & Web 2.0
Between the Lines
Blawgher.com Lawyer lady talks about life, intrigued that anyone would find such crap interesting.
Blawgher.com
Blawgzine.com Podcast Analysis and commentary on the law as it relates to evolving communications tools and technologies and the media. Hosted by Elizabeth L. Fletcher.
Blog de Octavio Isaac Rojas Orduña
BlogWrite for CEOs Debbie Weil on CEO blogs, writing a thought leadership blog..
Build a Better Podcast Beyond Self-Expression to Communication.
BusinessLogs
BuzzMachine
Church of the Customer All about word of mouth, customer evangelism and citizen marketers.
Corporate Hallucinations
Corporate PR
CorporatePR Commentary on the current and future practice of corporate public relations from Albrycht McClure & Partners (A.M.P.) Communications
Creative Conversations The Norman Agency’s Creative Director and Project Manager discuss important aspects of radio advertising creation.
Crossroads Dispatches The generalist synthesist weblog - quite often about innovations in innovation and marketing. Juxtaposing the right brain and left. Yin and yang. Analytical and intuitive. Technical and visceral. Future and in-the-now. Intersection of technology…
Cymfony’s Marketing Insight Insight on media measurement, market research, blogging and innovative technologies from Cymfony & guests
Darknet
Diary of a Shameless Self-Promoter A podcast devoted to effective self-promotion ideas hosted by Heidi Miller, a worldwide speaker and corporate presenter.
Dick Edelman
Digital Masters Digital Masters is a new audio program where experts discuss how technology is changing the business of media. Brought to you by the Ecast national network of ad-serving, digital-downloading jukeboxes in thousands of restaurants and taverns nationwide.
Doc Searls Weblog
Doc’s Podblog Where Doc Searls houses personal podcasts and show notes
Down the Avenue Bringing passion to technology, business & life
Drew B’s take on tech PR Tech PR blog - Inside opinion on the media, news, and technology pr
Duct Tape Marketing
E-communications & Community Maurene Caplan Grey explores the impact of e-communications, collaboration and new media in shaping business communities
E-communications & Community Maurene Caplan Grey explores the impact of e-communications, collaboration and new media in shaping business communities
Earshot Edelman podcast
Eastwikkers
Ecast Ecast news and press releases. Host: Eric Schwartzman
Editor’s Weblog
Engagement by Engagement A grassroots blog to chronicle developments in the advertising industry’s Engagement challenge. This blog is led by Nielsen BuzzMetrics and supported by the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA).
Engaget Podcast
Eric Rice 1
Eric Rice 2
Ether Breather Blog of Jiyan Wei
For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report A podcast from Neville Hobson & Shel Holtz a pair of communication professionals who think they have something to say. Hobson is based in Amsterdam, and Holtz is located in California. Their podcast is updated on Mondays and Thursdays.
From the Front Lines of PR
Future Tense
How do you create a podcast? eric rice’s take on everything
IABC Cafe
IFTF’s Future Now
infOpinions
International Communications Association
Internet Marketing Voodoo
iPressroom iPressroom news and press releases. Host: Eric Schwartzman
Jaffe Juice Fresh new marketing perspective and commentary from industry thought leader and author Joseph Jaffe.
Jen McClure’s Ruminations Jen McClure Shares Her Thoughts, Ideas, Articles, Papers, Reviews, Poetry, Lyrics, Photos, Ideas, Questions, Favorite Things, Frustrations, etc.
Jupiter Research Conversations
KDPaine’s PR Measurement Blog
Like It Matters Brian Oberkirch Blog
Lubetkin’s Other Blog Steve Lubetkin comments on journalism, communications, and public relations issues of importance, and encourages a dialogue with readers. He’s a veteran public relations practitioner and a long-time national leader in the PRSA.
Marcom Blog
Marketing Begins at Home David Parmet’s Blog
Marketing Blog This marketing blog has been created to share my Marketing experiences with other marketers or anyone interested in learning more about marketing. Visit this marketing blog often for free marketing tools, information, and advice.
Marketing Edge Short, crisp, insightful ideas on marketing, processes and societal change. From brand creation to lead generation, public relations to podcasting, all with a twist of humor and dollop of common sense. Hosted by Albert Maruggi.
Marketing Voices Building Stronger Brands with Blogs, Podcasts & Wikis
Marketing Vox
Media Guerrilla
Media Guerrilla
Media Insider
Media Insider
MediaMap
Mediashift - Mark Glaser
Mediations
Micropersuasion
MiniMediaGuy
Naked Conversations
NevOn
NevOn
New Communications Conversations The latest feature from the New Communications Blogzine is New Communications Conversations, a podcast that will feature interviews with industry leaders, as well as highlight unsigned music.
New Communications Forum
New Media Bibliography
New Media Musings
On the Record… Online Get the story behind the story as reporters from the mainstream media and newsmakers discuss how information technology is changing the news media and entertainment businesses.
Online Marketing Blog
Our Media
Over the River Insights from Greg Peverill- Conti
Paul Gilin’s Blog Social Media & the Open Enterprise
Paul Gillin’s Blog Social Media & the Open Enterprise
Pause Jory’s thoughts while sitting still
Performancing Helping bloggers succeed
Phil’s Blogservations Started in 2001, this is the perso-professional weblog from Phil Gomes: Senior Counsel for Online Communications at Edelman and graduate student at USC Annenberg. This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil’s everyday observations about a
Phil’s Blogservations
Podcast Planet
PodCast Radio Show PodCast Marketing from the PodCast Promenade
PodSafe Music Network The best in new music and music podcasts from the creators of PodShow.com
POP! PR Jots Jeremy Pepper’s blog: “What started as a diary of the trials and tribulations of starting my own public relations firm, POP! Public Relations, and has transitioned into commentary - my opinions and views - on public relations, publicity and other things t
PR Communications
PR Communications John Cass writes about marketing, PR and the Internet
PR Fuel
PR Machine
PR Meets the WWW
PR Opinions
PR Squared Todd Defren’s blog
PR Studies
PR2.0
Press Think - Jay Rosen
Principled Innovation Blog moving from imagination to impact
Public Journalism Network
Radar O’Reilly
Rating Agency RatingAgency.com is the first newsletter covering the people and activities of the credit rating agencies. We’ll be keeping track of personnel moves, criteria changes, and profiling the most powerful unknown players on Wall Street — the bond analysts who
Sally Falkow’s Website Content Strategy
San Francisco Chronicle Business Podcast Audio Highlights and the “Stories Behind the Stories” from the weekly Personal Technology section of The San Francisco Chronicle, Northern California’s Largest Newspaper. Hosts: Benny Evangelista, Marcus Chan
SATN
Silicon Valley Watcher
Silicon Valley Watcher
Small Biz Labs
SNCR Career Center
Social Media
Social Media Club
Society for New Communications Research
Spinfluencer Eric Schwartzman’s podcast: Explaining how I think marketing, advertising, public relations, the news media and emerging technologies influence percpetions
Strategic PR
Strominator.com
Syndication for Higher Ed
Talking Communications with Farrell Kramer
Tech Media This Week The SWMS Tech Media This Week podcast
TED Blog Ideas that matter in technology, entertainment & design
Telepocalypse
The Basement
The Big Sessions Want to know what’s on the biggest minds in interactive and traditional advertising? That’s the kind of stuff The BIG Sessions will uncover in our frank, exclusive interviews with the industry’s most influential players. With Jon Raj.
The Future of Work
The Good Seed
The Mercury News A+E Interactive
The New PR Wiki
Trafcom News What’s new in print, new media and face-to-face communications — by Donna Papacosta of Trafalgar Communications.
VoIP Watch
We the Media
Web Directory
Web Strategy by Jeremiah Jeremiah discusses effective web strategies, customer focused marketing, emerging technologies, and other related geek-speak made simple. These thoughts are his own, and none others.
Worker Bees Blog

Podcast Feeds:

A PR Guru’s Musings
A Shel of my Former Self
a shel of my former self
A to Z of Social Media
Across the Sound Each week marketing gurus Joseph Jaffe and Steve Rubel discuss the world of new marketing, media and PR on the Across the Sound podcast. Please subscribe to our podcast using the podcatcher of your choice.
Active Voice
Active Voice
Adventures in Business Communications
Adverblog a blog about advertising and mobile marketing. It features interactive, print, tv, guerilla, mobile and outdoor campaigns from all over the world, but it has a special focus on Europe.
Andy Lark’s Blog
Angie McKaig design. geekery. business. culture
Armchair Environmentalist
Berkshire Blog
Bernaise Source Mapping the brave new world of new media, the PR profession, news & Web 2.0
Between the Lines
Blawgher.com Lawyer lady talks about life, intrigued that anyone would find such crap interesting.
Blawgher.com
Blawgzine.com Podcast Analysis and commentary on the law as it relates to evolving communications tools and technologies and the media. Hosted by Elizabeth L. Fletcher.
Blog de Octavio Isaac Rojas Orduña
BlogWrite for CEOs Debbie Weil on CEO blogs, writing a thought leadership blog..
Build a Better Podcast Beyond Self-Expression to Communication.
BusinessLogs
BuzzMachine
Church of the Customer All about word of mouth, customer evangelism and citizen marketers.
Corporate Hallucinations
Corporate PR
CorporatePR Commentary on the current and future practice of corporate public relations from Albrycht McClure & Partners (A.M.P.) Communications
Creative Conversations The Norman Agency’s Creative Director and Project Manager discuss important aspects of radio advertising creation.
Crossroads Dispatches The generalist synthesist weblog - quite often about innovations in innovation and marketing. Juxtaposing the right brain and left. Yin and yang. Analytical and intuitive. Technical and visceral. Future and in-the-now. Intersection of technology…
Cymfony’s Marketing Insight Insight on media measurement, market research, blogging and innovative technologies from Cymfony & guests
Darknet
Diary of a Shameless Self-Promoter A podcast devoted to effective self-promotion ideas hosted by Heidi Miller, a worldwide speaker and corporate presenter.
Dick Edelman
Digital Masters Digital Masters is a new audio program where experts discuss how technology is changing the business of media. Brought to you by the Ecast national network of ad-serving, digital-downloading jukeboxes in thousands of restaurants and taverns nationwide.
Doc Searls Weblog
Doc’s Podblog Where Doc Searls houses personal podcasts and show notes
Down the Avenue Bringing passion to technology, business & life
Drew B’s take on tech PR Tech PR blog - Inside opinion on the media, news, and technology pr
Duct Tape Marketing
E-communications & Community Maurene Caplan Grey explores the impact of e-communications, collaboration and new media in shaping business communities
E-communications & Community Maurene Caplan Grey explores the impact of e-communications, collaboration and new media in shaping business communities
Earshot Edelman podcast
Eastwikkers
Ecast Ecast news and press releases. Host: Eric Schwartzman
Editor’s Weblog
Engagement by Engagement A grassroots blog to chronicle developments in the advertising industry’s Engagement challenge. This blog is led by Nielsen BuzzMetrics and supported by the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA).
Engaget Podcast
Eric Rice 1
Eric Rice 2
Ether Breather Blog of Jiyan Wei
For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report A podcast from Neville Hobson & Shel Holtz a pair of communication professionals who think they have something to say. Hobson is based in Amsterdam, and Holtz is located in California. Their podcast is updated on Mondays and Thursdays.
From the Front Lines of PR
Future Tense
How do you create a podcast? eric rice’s take on everything
IABC Cafe
IFTF’s Future Now
infOpinions
International Communications Association
Internet Marketing Voodoo
iPressroom iPressroom news and press releases. Host: Eric Schwartzman
Jaffe Juice Fresh new marketing perspective and commentary from industry thought leader and author Joseph Jaffe.
Jen McClure’s Ruminations Jen McClure Shares Her Thoughts, Ideas, Articles, Papers, Reviews, Poetry, Lyrics, Photos, Ideas, Questions, Favorite Things, Frustrations, etc.
Jupiter Research Conversations
KDPaine’s PR Measurement Blog
Like It Matters Brian Oberkirch Blog
Lubetkin’s Other Blog Steve Lubetkin comments on journalism, communications, and public relations issues of importance, and encourages a dialogue with readers. He’s a veteran public relations practitioner and a long-time national leader in the PRSA.
Marcom Blog
Marketing Begins at Home David Parmet’s Blog
Marketing Blog This marketing blog has been created to share my Marketing experiences with other marketers or anyone interested in learning more about marketing. Visit this marketing blog often for free marketing tools, information, and advice.
Marketing Edge Short, crisp, insightful ideas on marketing, processes and societal change. From brand creation to lead generation, public relations to podcasting, all with a twist of humor and dollop of common sense. Hosted by Albert Maruggi.
Marketing Voices Building Stronger Brands with Blogs, Podcasts & Wikis
Marketing Vox
Media Guerrilla
Media Guerrilla
Media Insider
Media Insider
MediaMap
Mediashift - Mark Glaser
Mediations
Micropersuasion
MiniMediaGuy
Naked Conversations
NevOn
NevOn
New Communications Conversations The latest feature from the New Communications Blogzine is New Communications Conversations, a podcast that will feature interviews with industry leaders, as well as highlight unsigned music.
New Communications Forum
New Media Bibliography
New Media Musings
On the Record… Online Get the story behind the story as reporters from the mainstream media and newsmakers discuss how information technology is changing the news media and entertainment businesses.
Online Marketing Blog
Our Media
Over the River Insights from Greg Peverill- Conti
Paul Gilin’s Blog Social Media & the Open Enterprise
Paul Gillin’s Blog Social Media & the Open Enterprise
Pause Jory’s thoughts while sitting still
Performancing Helping bloggers succeed
Phil’s Blogservations Started in 2001, this is the perso-professional weblog from Phil Gomes: Senior Counsel for Online Communications at Edelman and graduate student at USC Annenberg. This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil’s everyday observations about a
Phil’s Blogservations
Podcast Planet
PodCast Radio Show PodCast Marketing from the PodCast Promenade
PodSafe Music Network The best in new music and music podcasts from the creators of PodShow.com
POP! PR Jots Jeremy Pepper’s blog: “What started as a diary of the trials and tribulations of starting my own public relations firm, POP! Public Relations, and has transitioned into commentary - my opinions and views - on public relations, publicity and other things t
PR Communications
PR Communications John Cass writes about marketing, PR and the Internet
PR Fuel
PR Machine
PR Meets the WWW
PR Opinions
PR Squared Todd Defren’s blog
PR Studies
PR2.0
Press Think - Jay Rosen
Principled Innovation Blog moving from imagination to impact
Public Journalism Network
Radar O’Reilly
Rating Agency RatingAgency.com is the first newsletter covering the people and activities of the credit rating agencies. We’ll be keeping track of personnel moves, criteria changes, and profiling the most powerful unknown players on Wall Street — the bond analysts who
Sally Falkow’s Website Content Strategy
San Francisco Chronicle Business Podcast Audio Highlights and the “Stories Behind the Stories” from the weekly Personal Technology section of The San Francisco Chronicle, Northern California’s Largest Newspaper. Hosts: Benny Evangelista, Marcus Chan
SATN
Silicon Valley Watcher
Silicon Valley Watcher
Small Biz Labs
SNCR Career Center
Social Media
Social Media Club
Society for New Communications Research
Spinfluencer Eric Schwartzman’s podcast: Explaining how I think marketing, advertising, public relations, the news media and emerging technologies influence percpetions
Strategic PR
Strominator.com
Syndication for Higher Ed
Talking Communications with Farrell Kramer
Tech Media This Week The SWMS Tech Media This Week podcast
TED Blog Ideas that matter in technology, entertainment & design
Telepocalypse
The Basement
The Big Sessions Want to know what’s on the biggest minds in interactive and traditional advertising? That’s the kind of stuff The BIG Sessions will uncover in our frank, exclusive interviews with the industry’s most influential players. With Jon Raj.
The Future of Work
The Good Seed
The Mercury News A+E Interactive
The New PR Wiki
Trafcom News What’s new in print, new media and face-to-face communications — by Donna Papacosta of Trafalgar Communications.
VoIP Watch
We the Media
Web Directory
Web Strategy by Jeremiah Jeremiah discusses effective web strategies, customer focused marketing, emerging technologies, and other related geek-speak made simple. These thoughts are his own, and none others.
Worker Bees Blog

Thursday, September 02, 2010

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a shel of my former self » It’s time for the anti-social media guru meme to die

a shel of my former self » Infamy and Internet infamy: Is there a difference?

a shel of my former self » The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #562: August 30, 2010

a shel of my former self » If you’re not participating, you’re invisible

a shel of my former self » The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #561: August 23, 2010

a shel of my former self » An overview of video SEO for communicators

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