Archive - 2010
December 11th
Where were you when you heard the news of John Lennon's murder?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 12/11/2010 - 14:14It has been a long week, the first full week of my new job. To make things worse, I’ve been fighting a cold that I believe Fiona brought to the house. I’ve been tired and when I’ve gotten home, often gone straight to bed. My personal writing and my visit to friends blogs have suffered considerably. John from Ask The Blogster left a nice comment yesterday mentioning that I was missed from the Adgitize community.
I describe it as a community, instead of an advertising network or some sort of blogging network, because that is what it is. It relates back to any sort of good social media activity. It is about the community.
Dick, another active member of the Adgitize community, over at Dickster’s Random Thoughts asked in a recent blog post, "Where were you when you heard the news of John Lennon's murder?”. He talks about getting dressed in black and heading off to open up the store he worked at.
I’m a few years older than Dick. I was living in an old spice factory that had been converted into artists’ loft spaces in Brooklyn, NY. One of my loftmates was a photographer supporting himself working for CBS news doing food service. I remember that he told me that Lennon had been shot. The details are now a little bit blurry in my mind. My recollection was that at some point, he had gotten a call from work. He was told that Lennon had been shot and that it was going to be a busy long cold night at CBS news, and he had better get in to make sure there would be enough coffee and hot chocolate for people working long hours.
I had moved to New York to be a writer. I was supporting myself by writing computer programs for New York Life Insurance company. In the morning, I got on the subway into Manhattan. I don’t know if there really was a strange hush over the crowd in the subways, or it was just my reaction to all the people. I remember seeing a poster for some movie titled something like “The Starmaker” and I thought about how we deal with stars, making stars, killing stars. I stopped and wrote a poem about it in a park on the way to work. I suspect the poem was lost a long time ago, and it was probably a proto-emo type poem that is just as well lost.
Now, thirty years later, I’m still writing. I’m writing my blog posts. I’m working on using social media to improve communities’ health, and I’m tired. I’ll post this as is, rest, visit a few other blogs and head off to some social engagements for the day.
December 10th
#ff @chcconnecticut @chcradio @recessrockschc
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 12/10/2010 - 08:28As the new Social Media Manager for Community Health Center, Inc., one of my responsibilities is the organization’s presence on Twitter. Three of the these Twitter accounts are @chcconnecticut @chcradio @recessrockschc. CHCConnecticut is the main account. Like the other two accounts, it was set up prior to me starting so there were already some tweets and followers there. I’m still getting oriented at CHC, so my tweets have been limited. However, I have been tweeting there and appreciate an follows, retweets or comments.
A second twitter account is CHCRadio. Every Wednesday afternoon, Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter cohost a radio show “about the opportunities for reform and innovation in the health care system”. Besides being broadcast Wednesday afternoons on WESU, several other stations around the country rebroadcast it. So far the Twitter account is mostly centered around the primary broadcast. However, I hope to see the conversation broaden there to include discussions about when it is broadcast on other stations.
Then, there is Recess Rocks, @recessrockschc. This is a national childhood obesity program that CHC sponsors. Right now, a lot of the tweets are about childhood obesity programs in general and I’m looking for ways to expand that.
I continue to speak in my personal voice at @ahynes1, although I’ve had less time for that recently, just as I’ve had less time for my personal blog. However, I would love it if you would check out these other Twitter accounts. While your at it, check out their Facebook pages as well.
If you known of similar twitter accounts that I should pay attention to, please let me know.
December 9th
Rethinking the Social Contract
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 12/09/2010 - 07:36The U.S. Declaration of Independence says, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”. It is an idea that goes back to the social contract. We live in society with other people and we establish social contracts that govern that society and, ideally, keeps things running smoothly. People will argue many nuances of the social contract. Brought forward to the language of the twenty-first century, there people may ask if it is an opt-in or opt-out contract. Do we need to read and agree with the fine print, or is simply not revolting an implicit agreement.
Yet our social contracts go much further than just our relationship with a government. In the United States, we have a Federalist system where we are in a national social contract and state social contracts and then there are contracts between the states and the Federal government.
People join together in other social contracts to create churches, corporations and other organizations, and contracts between the governments and these organizations also come into play. Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments concerning the relationship between the State of Arizona, the U.S. Government, and corporations licensed to do business in Arizona. While most people are looking at this in terms of the implications for immigration, I’m especially interested in this in terms of what it means to all these different contracts.
Many of us assent to different social contracts on a regular basis as we click on the line about agreeing with the terms of service of various websites, probably most often, without ever reading those terms.
Getting closer to home, I’ve entered into an agreement with an organization. I will provide my expertise, on a full time basis, in exchange for money and benefits. It’s called getting a job. Beyond the simple agreement to be employed, there are other agreements in play.
One such agreement is about how social media and Internet Communications Technology is used. The other day, I sent out a request to friends for examples of these agreements from other corporations and received a great list. Now, I’m going over them to talk with my co-workers about how we can improve our agreements about social media.
As I thought about this, I pondered other agreements that people enter into. One agreement is a contract that patients assent to when they start group psychotherapy. The goal of this agreement is to provide a framework that will help patients work together to address issues in their lives.
This morning, I sent off an email to the group psychotherapy mailing list asking if they could share examples of some of these contracts. The question I am pondering: Can we learn from therapeutic contracts and bring some of the ideas into our other agreements? Can we do this in such a way that our actions within the broader society can also become more therapeutic? Can, or should we, assent to be civil online, or in our interactions with governments?
December 8th
Wordless Wednesday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 07:28
December 7th
RIP Elizabeth Edwards
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 20:30In the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary, I was an Edwards supporter and I’ve written a bit about this in my blog. So, this evening as I reflect on the passing of Elizabeth Edwards, I thought I would go back and look at some of what I wrote about her over the past few years.
The earliest blog post of mine that I can find where I mention Elizabeth Edwards was in September 2006. I had gotten a copy of Saving Graces and given a copy to Kim. In October, I mentioned Elizabeth again in terms of Cancer Blogs.
In March, 2007, I wrote a blog post entitled There’s a trick to being strong. The title came from a quote in Saving Graces, "There's a trick to being strong," Elizabeth Edwards wrote, "and the trick is that nobody does it alone." It rings true today as I read emails from friends mourning the passing of Elizabeth Edwards.
In April, I wrote a blog post, Cancer. It talked about so many people always talked in hush tones about cancer and the discussions that were going on about whether or not the Edwards’ were doing the right thing in trying to keep living their lives as much as possible the same way after the recurrence of Elizabeth’s cancer as they had before.
In June, I linked to a great blog post, Elizabeth Edwards writes a letter to her children. The author quotes Elizabeth Edwards,
"You don't know when your time's going to come and whether you're going to have any warning, and it would be a great idea to pass on the things you thought would be important to them."
It is an idea that I suspect some bloggers keep in mind as they write. Just as I am going back and reading what I had written about Elizabeth Edwards. Some day it will be my children’s turn to read back over my blog posts remembering my life.
On November 7, 2007, I wrote about Elizabeth Edwards being listed as one of Glamor Magazine’s Women of the Year.
It is great to see fighting bravely against cancer as glamorous. It is great to see standing up for what you believe as glamorous.
It was a week and a half later that I had a chance to sit down with a bunch of bloggers to talk with Elizabeth Edwards. I wrote a blog post about the discussion in Tear Down These Walls. The discussion with her about how she was educating her children while they were on the campaign trail sticks with me as a great illustration of this marvelous woman. At the end of the discussion, I managed to take a picture of Fiona, Kim and Elizabeth Edwards. It was at the bottom of that blog post, and I feel it should be included here.
Elizabeth Edwards was a marvelous woman. We have all suffered a loss. President Obama issued a statement saying,
Michelle and I were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Elizabeth Edwards. This afternoon I spoke to Cate Edwards and John Edwards, and offered our family’s condolences. I came to know and admire Elizabeth over the course of the presidential campaign. She was a tenacious advocate for fixing our health care system and fighting poverty, and our country has benefited from the voice she gave to the cause of building a society that lifts up all those left behind.
In her life, Elizabeth Edwards knew tragedy and pain. Many others would have turned inward; many others in the face of such adversity would have given up. But through all that she endured, Elizabeth revealed a kind of fortitude and grace that will long remain a source of inspiration. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends.
Hopefully, others will read of her life and follow her example. Rest In Peace, Elizabeth Edwards.
