Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

Yesterday I listened to an excellent Radio Open Source podcast episode. Christopher Lydon interviewed Mark Blyth, a political economist at Brown University, about what he’s been learning about the Occupy movement by talking to protestors in Boston — and putting it into a global economic, social, and historic context that I found sobering.

So give it a listen:

Mark Blyth (6): Going to school on “Occupy Wall St.”

One point Blyth made that particularly struck me — and that I especially wish every journalist would take to heart — is this: The labor movement didn’t come out of nowhere. It didn’t spring into being fully formed with collective bargaining and arbitration procedures. It coalesced gradually, in fits and starts, from a society struggling with the “volatility constraint” that comes with rampant inequality.

Birth is messy. Infants aren’t born talking in complete sentences. So don’t look at the Occupy movement expecting this:

botticelli-birth-venus

Boticelli's "Birth of Venus"

After listening to all the context Blyth offered, I suspect we’re watching the earliest phases of a different kind of labor movement: the labor pangs that precedes the birth of something that might eventually walk and talk. Something that probably won’t go by the name “Occupy.”

I only hope the world can collectively raise this baby right.

Case in point: Yesterday a clueless media relations professional whom I do not know sent me an e-mail with the subject line: “I sent a poem to a wannabee crotchety old bitch.” He was alluding to my recent birthday post, in which I reflected on aging.

The comment this person attempted to append to that post — which I did not approve — was the poem When I am an old woman I shall wear purple. That was in itself a mistake, though not a fatal one. If ever there was an overused, reflexive cliche response to any woman who mentions aging in a positive light, that poem would be it.

So this PR guy e-mailed me to let me know he’d tried to post that comment. Here’s the start of his message, and where he really screwed up…

He wrote:

“Hello Amy. I don’t think I’ll ever get to put the word ‘bitch’ in a corporate email subject line ever again but happy birthday. I hope you like the purple dresses poem that I commented with on your blog. It has stuck fondly in my memory since I was 13 and while I probably won’t wear purple dresses when I’m older, I aspire to that living.

“Anyway, here’s a pitch with some findings further below…”

And he did, indeed, follow that intro with a PR pitch. The real reason he was contacting me was that he wanted me to write up for CNN.com (where I blog about mobile technology) a study that his company recently released.

What can I say, but: Ick! No! Not in a million years!

I bear no personal animosity toward this media relations rep. But his note squicked me so much that I think it’s worth offering as an example for what people should generally not do when reaching out to strangers in order to try to get them to do something for you.

What was wrong with his approach?

• Transparently slimy.I have no problem that he read a post on my personal blog that contained personal information. I wouldn’t have published that post if I hadn’t intended it to be public. However, using my personal disclosures as a basis to try to ingratiate himself, and then launch straight into a PR pitch, lacked finesse and forethought.
• Presumptuous.If he wanted to comment on my personal post — even with that cliche — fine. Other people who I don’t know commented on that birthday post, and I welcomed (and published) those responses. But it was presumptuous for him to assume that leaving a comment on my personal blog post actually created some kind of personal connection between us that might encourage me, more than otherwise, to use his pitch for a CNN.com story.Granted, I have sometimes struck up meaningful personal connections and friendships via blog comments, and sometimes these cross over with professional matters. This is a process that happens organically over time. Trying to engineer that in a single e-mail is a really bad idea.
• Inappropriate/rude. When I saw the word “bitch” in the subject line of an e-mail from a person with a male name whom I don’t know, I nearly deleted it as spam immediately. That’s not the kind of thing a man should ever say to a woman who doesn’t already know him and consider him a friend. Even if she recently used that word in a blog post. And especially if you’re trying to contact her for professional reasons. No matter what you do, that language just won’t look friendly or funny. Gender power dynamics suck, but they do exist. So it’s dumb to act like they don’t, especially when you’re trying to build bridges.

What could he have done instead? If he felt so moved, he could have left his blog comment. Really, that would have been fine. Cliche included.

Then if he wanted to pitch me, he should have sent me a separate e-mail that did not refer to his blog comment, and that did not use language which could easily be mistaken for a gender-based insult. From there, if I recognized his name, I might have noted or asked him about his blog comment. But it was inappropriate for him to draw this connection, since it implied that I should give his pitch special treatment in a professional decision.

There’s a huge fuzzy gray area between the personal and the professional realms, especially online. So I can understand why these missteps happen. Personally I think it’s futile (and fundamentally not credible) to try to separate the personal and professional spheres entirely. It’s better to blend them thoughtfully in a way that suits you. That’s what I’ve been trying to do since I got online way back in the early 90s.

Being ignorant of, or choosing to ignore, the emotionally and socially crucial distinction between personal and professional information (and how they might imply relationships and influence) leads to overstepping that can look invasive or offensive.

In light of this reality, it’s more important than ever for everyone (especially media pros of all kinds) to be aware that there is still a difference between personal and professional, and to use those different kinds of information mindfully in pursuit of your goals.

In my opinion, journalists should be equally mindful of this pitfall when scouring personal posts on blogs or social media in order to find sources to contact, especially regarding breaking news with deeply personal angles like a murder or arrest. If you want to use digital communication tools to build those kind of community connections, do that up front as much as possible.

If a journalist must approach someone they don’t know about a sensitive personal matter in order to cover a story, be very very sensitive to the personal/professional distinction. Don’t use their available personal info to ingratiate yourself by pretending to be their friend, or that you care for personal reasons, and then try to get them to give you the information for your story. That tactic can work, but it’s unethical and slimy. And from a practical standpoint, it can easily backfire in a way that not only thwarts your goals but undermines your personal and professional reputation in a very public, findable way.

I chose not to publish this PR guy’s name or employer because I really don’t want to smear him personally. He made a mistake, and this is a “teachable moment.” We can all move forward from that.

It’s on a similar theme, with a twist: The collective, self-reinforcing cognitive dissonance and fervent but meaningless arguments that keeps sports fandom and the pro sports industry rolling — and why the people involved in pro sports probably shouldn’t draw attention to that fact. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, and all that.

I think you might be able to search-and-replace the sports references here with references to politics, religion, smartphone platforms, or news/media brands, and it would still work.

Brilliant.

via YouTube – How LeBron James Broke the Golden Rule of Sports.

Hat tip: George Kelly

I’m reading it because I’m fascinated and concerned why people (sometimes in large numbers) tend to cling to beliefs/positions fiercely long after they’ve been factually debunked/disproven, whether by science or by journalistic, legal, or other systematic investigation. (WMD, anyone?)

This kind of anti-fact, anti-science backlash tends to really confuse and frustrate journalists and scientists.

It sucks when you work really hard to do the fairest, most systematic investigation of a topic that deeply affects many people’s lives — but the very people who are suffering most from the topic of your research refuse to believe what you have to say, or accuse you of being part of some conspiracy to hoodwink them. And meanwhile, your less skilled or less ethical colleagues are producing their own research and reports designed to foster fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

That generates considerable friction, controversy, and conflict. And worse, it delays the discovery and implementation of real solutions.

Why does this happen — and what can journalists and scientists do about it?…

Panic Virus isn’t a great book (I found most of it tiresomely redundant, like a heavily padded feature article), but the 2nd half of ch. 16 on cognitive biases is relevant here.

There (starting at about location 3100 in the Kindle edition), Mnookin explains psychological phenomena such as pattern recognition, the clustering illusion, cognitive dissonance, and availability cascades. They’re just part of how our brains work, and the practices of science and journalism often act as counterbalances to these innate tendencies. That’s why science and journalism are fundamentally uncomfortable and controversial professions.

But these quirks of how brains work are why just presenting facts and information often has the opposite social effect that journalists hope for.

I think if our goal as journalists is to help people understand how things really are, how they got that way, what might happen next, and what people might do to steer the future or protect their interests, we need to think hard about how to accommodate — not deny — these psychological tendencies.

These phenomena evolved into our brains’ hardwiring for good reasons — but like many evolved tendencies, they present drawbacks when the environment that people exist within shifts quickly and radically.

I’m not sure what might be the best way to adapt journalism/media in ways that accommodate these neurological tendencies constructively (rather than simply dismiss or denigrate them). But I’m pretty sure that the standard journalistic approach of posing as a detached, uninvolved observer who makes no decisions or judgments only feeds the kind of passionate anti-fact backlash these neurological tendencies produce.

I realize it’s hugely controversial to suggest that it might be a good thing for society if journalists were to present themselves as less detached and more human. Usually when I have that conversation in a community of journalists, it generates a lot of passionate backlash.

But maybe such a fierce reaction, in itself, might be an indicator of these very phenomena at work in journalists’ own brains.

UPDATES:

June 18: On a related theme of collective cognitive dissonance, watch this short, brilliant video rant by NY hip-hop radio show host Jay Smooth: How Lebron James Broke the Golden Rule of Sports.

June 16: In B2B Memes, John Bethune wrote an excellent followup to my post. Here’s an excerpt:

I wonder: when you’re dealing with anosognosics—people who can’t recognize their own cognitive failings—is there any way to get them to accept reality without wrapping it in deception? Can you give such readers what they need without, perhaps impossibly, also giving them what they want? Does your goal of truth telling somehow imperceptibly slip into propaganda?

Faced with such questions, I tend to throw up my hands in despair and fall back on a selfish impulse: “This is my search for truth here. You can take it or leave it.”

That’s fine for me, but not for journalism. Truth-telling is transactional. As Gahran suggests, if journalists can’t find ways to get people to listen, they will have failed. The trick will be to do so without bending the truth in the process.

Also, about the anti-vaccination movement: My friend Mary Mactavish pointed me toward this week’s USA Today story noting that the US is in the midst of the worst measles outbreak in 15 years. Salient point: “Granting exceptions to vaccine requirements has helped foster outbreaks, research shows.”

At the end, I noted:

Given that groups often have considerable reach and influence, it makes sense for news organizations to actively engage local or relevant groups, especially via social media.

The online activities of groups are now a key channel for news, information, communication, and engagement for most Americans. It makes sense to build bridges with these channels in order to reach wider audiences and listen more effectively to community issues and concerns.

Which is yet another reason for the news business to get over its traditional stance of aloofness/separation from the community under the fig leaf of objectivity.

As a polyamorous person, I was rather tickled that this topic got such prominent play. I figured: Cool! There goes a chunk of the vocabulary gap!

If you haven’t heard the term, polyamory means being open to having more than one intimate relationship at a time, with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved.

Yes, I realize any new term sounds awkward until you get used to it. So: Get used to it. Because here’s what the vocabulary gap looks like to a poly person…

WHEN WORDS FAIL

Whenever the subject of relationships comes up, if I mention something that indicates I’m not monogamous, usually I see raised eyebrows. If I clarify that I’m poly, usually I get blank stares. Most people haven’t heard that word.

…Yes, moving to the Bay Area has helped ease that social awkwardness — but it’s still surprisingly common, even here.

Usually when people first hear the word polyamory, they immediately conflate it with infidelity, patriarchal polygamy, sex-focused swinging, or dysfunction. Occasionally they may already have some grasp of some aspects of polyamory — but rarely do they possess a vocabulary for it that’s not either exclusionary (“non-monogamous”), derisive (“promiscuous,” “cheating with permission,” or “can’t really commit”), or deliberately vague (“open”).

That’s not their fault. I don’t feel personally insulted by this vocabulary gap. But it is a problem.

Imagine if our language had no word for “female.” What if our only words for someone with a vagina were (at best) “not male” — or (at worst) “bitch,” “whore,” and “second-class citizen.”

That’s kinda what many poly people deal with. Prejudicial semi-invisibility gets old fast.

So whenever polyamory gets significant mainstream media coverage (such as this July 2009 Newsweek feature), I think it’s a good thing. Even if the coverage is poorly done, or flat-out negative.

Whenever the mainstream media mention polyamory, the vocabulary gap shrinks a little. That makes it just a bit easier for poly folk to participate in conversations that monogamous folk take for granted.

THE P-WORD AND THE EVIL EYE

There’s something else I’ve noticed when polyamory gets mentioned in conversations or publications: the immediate, reflexive, superstitious “evil-eye” reaction it commonly evokes.

Here’s what I mean. Often, when the P-word gets mentioned and explained — and even when people understand that it’s a valid and not inherently unstable or inferior option — it’s typical for them to immediately distance themselves verbally from polyamory.

It’s as if the very concept of polyamory has cooties. “It’s not something I would ever do!” and “Well, I guess that might work for some people, but not me!” are the most common evil-eye lines I hear.

And in writing, the P-word typically gets packaged in quotation marks, as if to insulate acceptable language from its contagion.

Then there are more blatant mock-shock evil eye reactions that blend panic and prurience, like this from today’s Toledo Blade’s Thin Slices blog:

“This week from the Boston Globe, a look at something called polyamory, which we find incredibly confusing and scary in the category of ‘That might be OK for other people, but not us.’ Interesting, though.”

This puzzles me. When you meet or hear about someone who’s gay, do you feel any pressing need to distance yourself from the concept? Must you reflexively blurt, “Well I’d certainly never be attracted to someone of the same sex, but…”

Or when Jews meet (or discuss) Christians, must they promptly declare, “Well, worshiping Jesus isn’t something I’d ever do, but…”

Seriously: Wouldn’t you consider that rude?

I’m just barely old enough to recall hearing some men say, “Well, having a career may be fine for some women, but my wife doesn’t need to work.” I’m also old enough to recall when such remarks became embarrassing, and stopped.

Generally I just chalk the evil eye reaction up to normal human instincts: fear of the unfamiliar, and fear of ostracism (via guilt-by-association). And I can understand that revealing and questioning any societal assumption is disorienting. You just want to get your feet back under you.

Adopting this mindset helps me to not snark back: “What, YOU can only have ONE intimate relationship at a time? Well, I guess that might work for SOME people… Sounds terribly limited and unrealistic to me, though. But to each their own, I guess…”

I hope the P-word evil eye is just a temporary linguistic quirk. Because it’s hard to talk with people who keep throwing up verbal fences.

…In the meantime, this old Jerry Seinfeld bit, “Not that there’s anything wrong with it,” helps me keep my sense of humor about the poly evil eye:

I just finished reading a killer classic fiction mashup (literally), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It’s a parody of the Jane Austen novel (which I tried to read in college and found unbearably tedious).

I must admit, though: The addition of a Night of the Living Dead-style zombie plague made all the endless fretting and plotting over how to present  oneself as appropriately marriageable in polite society surprisingly entertaining and understandable.

Because the thing is: The strictures of British aristocratic society — particularly how women were held in chattel status, and the ceaseless power plays of verbal indirection — were indeed nightmarish, soul-destroying, and cannibalistic.

Therefore, I don’t think it’s a stretch to consider this book a seminal feminist treatise. (God knows we need more entertaining seminal works of feminism!)

If you read this book (and I recommend it) don’t miss the reader’s discussion guide at the end. It contains 10 questions. Here are a couple of my favorites…

2. “Is Mr. Collins merely too fat and stupid to notice his wife’s gradual transformation into a zombie, or could there be another explanation for his failure to acknowledge the problem? If so, what might that explanation be? How might his occupation (as a pastor) relate to his denial of the obvious, or his decision to hang himself?”

6. “Some critics have suggested that the zombies represent the authors’ views toward marriage — an endless curse that sucks the life out of you and just won’t die. Do you agree?”

So: Discuss….

singlesmap

*Livestock statistics not included

Seriously, this interactive singles map is fun. I just wish there was a poly version!

Thanks to Allan Jenkins for the pointer.

UPDATE: Right after I posted this article, David Herrold told me (very nicely) that you can indeed turn device updates on for individual Twitter friends via the Twitter interface or by texting “on username” to 40404 from the phone number you’ve connected to your Twitter account. So you don’t need to convert RSS to SMS to get text updates from specific Twitter users. Still, the strategy I outline below is helpful for following Twitter search queries and hashtags via text messaging.

Technically, Twitter is designed with that frustrating 140-character limit so it can work even over the barest of bare-bones cell phones via text messaging. But even so, twittering by text messaging is cumbersome and a little financially risky.

A colleague e-mailed me with a Twitter question. She wants to use her mobile phone to send and receive tweets via SMS text messaging, but doesn’t have a data plan for her phone. (Hey, there’s a recession on, you might have heard.)

Yes, you can indeed read and post to Twitter solely via text messaging if you choose. I do think it’s a good idea to get set up to post to Twitter via text. You never know when you might need it.

The tricky part lies in receiving tweets via text messaging, while controlling costs…

Currently, Twitter only gives you the option to receive (via text message) either all tweets or no tweets from everyone you follow. When you turn “device updates” on from the main settings for your Twitter account, you run the risk of unpredictably running up extra texting charges, depending on the text messaging plan you have with your cell carrier.

Not to mention the annoyance factor of getting pinged every couple of minutes — or more frequently — depending on how many people you follow on Twitter, and how prolific they are.

I realize that there are far more people with bare-bones cell phones out there than who have smartphones or regular internet access. Why shouldn’t these folks be able to follow however many people they want on their Twitter account, while also exercising some control over the amount of text messages they receive from Twitter, to limit cost and annoyance?

I’ve discovered one possible hack to help in this situation.

There are some free services that convert RSS feeds to text messages. A free one I just tried out is Pingie, which I found on Lifehacker.

Every Twitter user’s account gets its own RSS feed. (Here’s mine.) Similarly, any Twitter search query also gets its own feed (like this one for the hashtag #homeless). When you set up a Pingie account, you can add to it any RSS feed. Once you have this set up, when a Twitter user you’ve added to your Pingie account tweets, the tweet goes out on their RSS feed. Pingie sees it, turns it into a text message, and routes it to your cell phone.

So if there are just a few Twitter users whose tweets you really want to get via text, or a few hashtags or search terms you really want to follow, you can use a tool like this to receive just those tweets . This is one way to control texting costs and annoyance.

…It’s not a perfect system, of course.

For instance, if one of your chosen few Twitter-by-text friends decides to post 100 tweets in three hours, you will receive all of them as text messages — and pay for them, depending on your mobile plan.

Also, as far as I can tell, you cannot delete a particular feed from your Pingie account via text message. So if a Twitter friend goes on an unexpected rampage, you probably won’t be able to stop the flood until you can access the Pingie site via a browser. Which could cost you money in the meantime, so there is still some risk.

And with Pingie you must add feeds individually. Depending on how many Twitter users or search terms you want to receive via text, this could be tedious to set up.

Finally, I don’t know how reliable Pingie is over time. I tried it, and it does work — but I don’t know whether it has outages, misses some tweets, or has other glitches or service delays. Also, other RSS-to-text services might offer different features.

Still, a service like Pingie at least makes Twitter less financially risky for people with VERY limited technology, web access, and budgets. A version of it more tailored to meeting that growing need might be surprisingly popular.

For instance, a surprising number of low-income and homeless people have cell phones that are SMS-ready, and also occasionally access the net from public terminals. What if a local social service agency used Twitter to broadcast announcements of services and opportunities, and also to solicit feedback from clients? What if a news organization set up a Twitter account that posts just a couple of headlines daily especially relevant to the working poor, or used Twitter to establish a dialogue with that community? The advantage of doing this via Twitter, rather than simply via direct text messaging, is that the content of these announcements and discussions would be more widely visible and findable as well as accessible.

Giving people more ways to exercise a certain amount of control over how much Twitter by text might cost them could create a whole new market for Twitter, and offer new options to people with scarce resources. And it might help make the Twittersphere a bit more economically diverse — which would be a cultural benefit and useful reality-check, I think. And social media might reflect society just a bit more accurately.