Media
Media
Large Groups and the Political and Media Ecospheres
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 04/05/2010 - 20:54A recent email discussion about the earthquake in Mexico and people’s reactions to it have caused me to spend a little more time thinking about how political and media ecospheres are virtual environments were large group behavior, for better or worse, emerges.
In the 1990s, I was working within a complicated matrix management structure for a large international bank. To increase my effectiveness, I hired an organizational consultant to coach me. Her doctorate was in psychoanalytics as it applied to organizations, particularly in the tradition of Tavistock, Wilfred Bion, A.K. Rice and others called Group Relations. I became fascinated by Group Relations and read extensively on the topic, as well as attended various Group Relations experiential conferences.
A key part of Group Relations experiential conferences is the large group. The attendees of the conference gather with tasks like “learning through experience how groups function, how leadership in groups takes place, and how the participants can become more effective leaders within their organizations and communities”. It was fascinating to watch people in the group take up roles that they might otherwise not have taken up, due to pressures from the group as it reacted to the anxieties of the group.
I became particularly interested in this as it took place online and was invited to write an article about the Internet and the Large Group for the Journal of Group Analysis back around 2001. Technology has changed a lot since then, and there are many more people online now than a decade ago, but still people have similar reactions as members of large groups online.
With this long introduction out of the way, let me explore a discussion on the mailing list of group psychotherapists that I participate in. One person noted, “This is an unsafe world. Don’t you think it’s becoming less and less safe every day?” A graphic in the Los Angeles Times provided a good illustration of this. The first two months of 2010 showed fewer earthquakes of magnitude four or greater than the previous four years, but more earthquakes with a magnitude of six or greater. Looking at U.S. Geological Survey data, the first two months of 2010 showed over twice as many magnitude six or greater earthquakes than the average from 1900 until the present.
Others suggested that the daily media blitz, focusing on the ‘disaster du jour’ is what makes things seem worse. If anything, the media ecosphere with its focus on, “If it bleeds, it leads”, may be creating a dangerous feedback loop in the large group of media viewers. The ‘disaster du jour’ is what boosts viewership, so media corporations seek out the disaster du jour, which feeds the group’s anxiety addiction.
Yet with a large group at a Group Relations Conference, there are ‘consultants’ to the group that will, from time to time, share observations about what is going on with the large group. Perhaps bloggers can take on some of this role in questioning what the traditional media is doing, and if it is feeding some sort of anxiety addiction. I flirted with this idea a few years ago in my blog post, Are bloggers Group Psychotherapists?.
I ended that blog post with:
Ultimately, bloggers are no more group psychotherapists then they are journalists. Yet just as bloggers can learn a lot from journalists, they could learn an awful lot from group psychotherapists and could help bring innovation and healing to problems that our towns, cities, states, countries and world faces.
This returns me to my reaction to the email discussion. There, I suggested that the real issue is perhaps not whether or not the world is more or less safe than it was in previous years, but how we deal with anxieties that it might be less safe. It seems like much of the political discourse these days is focused on people’s fears about this world being less safe. In fact, the discourse may in fact be contributing to a less safe world, just as a large group, running wild with its anxieties can become a more dangerous place, without someone helping people contain the anxieties.
So, my question to bloggers, journalists and politicians, are you able to step up and help contain anxieties instead of fan them? To any group psychotherapists that might read this, can you help people in media and politics learn how to contain anxieties and process them into more helpful reactions? Can you help transform our media and political ecospheres into safer holding environments?
What do you think?
Seeking the Trust and Reporting about Connecticut Political News
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 03/30/2010 - 12:19Last week, Connecticut Gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont had a meeting with a group of political bloggers in New Haven. It was a valuable conversation, but it only included a small subset of bloggers covering political events in Connecticut. Some of this may be a result of ambiguity of the role of bloggers in Connecticut politics. Some bloggers are activists. Some are journalists of one sort or another. Some are both, and some are neither. I try carefully to balance roles of an activist, a journalist, as well as a plain old blogger writing about daily life. It is a difficult balance to achieve and I suspect my critic might suggest I fail at some of this.
To a certain extent, I see journalism and activism much more closely related than some might suspect. The Society of Professional Journalism’s Code of Ethics calls on journalists to ‘Seek Truth and Report It’. This seems closely aligned with open government activists and I would love to see more bloggers approach their writing using some of the tools of professional journalism to achieve this simple but profound goal.
One organization I strongly encourage serious bloggers to find out more about is Investigative Reporters and Editors. They accept bloggers as members and offer great trainings. I went to an IRE training in New Haven some time ago, and I’ve just been told that they have a Watchdog Workshop scheduled for April 16th in Providence, RI.
One of the things I learned about was getting on the Census Bureau’s press list. Now, I regularly get emails from the Census Bureau about various data that they are releasing. Most people think of the census bureau in terms of the population census they do every ten years. However, they are a source of many other great bits of information.
As an example, on March 23rd, the Census reported State Government Tax Collections Decrease $67 Billion in 2009. The report noted that Income Tax collections were down 12 Percent and Corporate tax collections were down 21 Percent. Today, they issued an additional report noting about State and Local Government Tax Revenue noting that:
Tax revenues grew in the fourth quarter, marking the first quarter of positive growth in five quarters. Individual Income Tax and General Sales Tax revenues continued to decline, while Corporate Income Tax and Property Tax revenue increased.
There is a lot of valuable information in these tables if you dig a little bit. For example, according to the Census Report, state revenues in Connecticut went from $1.7 billion in the third quarter of 2009 to $3.0 billion in the fourth quarter, reflecting the national trend of a rebound in revenues for the fourth quarter.
Nationwide, the top revenue sources are general sales and gross receipts, individual income taxes, motor fuel sales tax, and corporate net income taxes. Connecticut mostly reflected this during the fourth quarter of 2009, with some notable differences. Nationally, sales tax and income tax both account for about 34% of States’ receipts each. In Connecticut, income tax accounts for 47% of the States’ receipts and sales tax only accounts for 27%. Connecticut receives 4.2% of its revenue from motor fuel taxes, while nationally, the average is 5.2%. Connecticut receives higher revenues from than the national average on tobacco, but half of the national average on alcohol. For amusements, Connecticut receives nearly 4 times as much in revenues as the national average, but corporate income taxes, Connecticut only receives about 70% of the national average. All of this is information bloggers covering the state elections, especially during these difficult budget times, should have access to.
Another interesting Census Bureau report is State and Local Public Employee Retirement Systems Assets Drop Nearly $180 Billion in 2008.
“Shortfalls in state and local government pension plans may have long-term consequences for some state and local governments,” said Lisa Blumerman, chief of the Census Bureau’s Governments Division. “These data allow the user to annually monitor the characteristics of these retirement systems.”
Woodbridge has done a good job of funding retiree benefits, but other municipalities may not be doing so well. For 2008, State and Local governments in Connecticut collected $2.8 billion for public employee retirement systems. About a billion dollars of this was from losses on investments during 2008. At the same time, the expenditures were $3.1 billion. The retirement system holdings for 2008 were $32.5 billion. Again, this sort of information would be very useful to bloggers seriously covering the current elections.
As a final note, about a year ago, I set up CTNewsWire, a Google Group that elected officials, candidates, state and local agencies, and nonprofit organizations can use to send press releases and media advisories to anyone that is interested, especially bloggers and citizen journalists. There are now over fifty subscribers to the Google group, and over 1800 releases have been sent to the group. Bloggers and citizen journalists that are not members of the Google Group are encouraged to check it out as another valuable source of information about what is going on in Connecticut.
Some bloggers wish to focus strictly on being activists or advocates. Others don’t want to get at all involved in news or politics. Yet if you are a blogger in Connecticut that wants to get more involved in seeking the truth about what is happening in Connecticut and reporting it, check out the IRE, the Census Bureau, and CTNewsWire. If there are other good sources, share them.
Ned Lamont Addresses Bloggers in New Haven
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 03/28/2010 - 08:15Friday evening, Connecticut Gubernatorial Candidate Ned Lamont met with a group of about a dozen bloggers and staffers to discuss various issues that the state and the campaign faces. Friday was also the day that New Haven, along with over a thousand other municipalities, filed their requests to become cities where Google would test gigabit Internet.
Ned's company, Lamont Digital Systems, has been providing cable services, including high speed Internet to colleges and universities for over twenty-five years, and so I asked him his thoughts about the Google gigabit Internet effort. He wouldn't say a lot about what his company is doing, or planning in the future and only noted that they provide high speed internet connectivity to college campuses and it is up to the college campuses how they make that available to students. He did note that companies would be wise to study what students are doing with the Internet on college campuses as a good indication of the future of digital.
In terms of the efforts by New Haven to become a Google test bed, he noted the superb research institutions in New Haven and what a great boost gigabit Internet would bring to the area for research as well as for economic development. He went on to say that the state needs to be looking at how it would promote digital infrastructure across the state, not only in big cities but in rural areas as well.
When I asked about what could be done to improve the infrastructure in Hartford, he noted that many agencies look like they are still in the 1970s and technology in Hartford needs a major overhaul. He asked why there isn't more sharing of computing resources and information in Hartford. Improving the technology infrastructure, in the long term, would reduce costs, improve service and also improve government transparency.
Included in his ideas for more efficient technology in Hartford, Mr. Lamont suggested that the state government should do more electronic group purchasing, and should allow municipalities to join in on the electronic group purchasing for additional savings both in Hartford and at the local level.
Unfortunately, he noted, addressing many the technology problems in Hartford requires upfront spending, and during these difficult financial times, it is hard to make these sort expenditures. When asked about what can be done for the near term financial problems he spoke about elimination of longevity pay and more furlough days, two items that the Senate Democrats included in their deficit mitigation package. He spoke about eliminating some of the deputy commissioner positions and seeking recurring cuts, instead of simply one-time budget transfers.
Since this was a meeting with bloggers, and not the traditional news media I asked him his thoughts on media consolidation. Mr. Lamont did not seem especially concerned. He stated he was much more concerned about it fifteen years ago, but that now, with the Internet, people have much more choice about what news they receive and that there is much less central control over the news. He encouraged people to read from a wide variety of sources.
In closing, Ned Lamont noted the importance of projects like GoogleHaven. Most importantly, he said we need someone who will challenge the status quo. He did that, taking on the cable companies when he started his own company. His campaign in 2006 challenged the political status quo, and he hopes to get an opportunity to challenge the status quo in Hartford.
#PCCT - PodCamp Connecticut, Planning Stages
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 03/19/2010 - 11:51Last night a dozen or so social media enthusiasts gathered in Rocky Hill to share ideas about organizing an unconference about social media in Connecticut. Many of the participants had been to various Podcamps and some had been to other forms of unconferences. Just about everyone already knew each other from CT Tweet Crawls and other social media gatherings. We discussed several issues; should this be a ‘PodCamp’, which is a well known brand trademarked by the PodCamp Foundation? Should it be a Social Media Camp, or some other form of BarCamp? How strictly should it follow the ‘unconference’ format? What, in the end, are we trying to get out of this?
One of the issues is that many of the people already heavily involved in social media have been to PodCamps, BarCamps or related events. There are PodCamps in Boston, Western Mass., New York City and beyond. What would make PodCamp Connecticut special?
Suzi Craig came up with a great suggestion, focusing on, “Work, Live, Play, Connecticut”. How does social media affect our lives here in Connecticut?
For the news industry, the affect is profound. People are now getting their news online. They are sharing information, both that they have gathered, and pointers to interesting stories they have found via social media. The news industry is still struggling with how best to respond to the affects of social media.
Yet other companies need to think about this as well. Word of mouth has always been the best advertising, and now word of mouth is taking place online. How do businesses effectively join in on the conversation in a way that it helps their business?
This leads us nicely to the ‘Play’ aspect of Suzi’s suggestion. People use social media to decide what bar, restaurant, or events to go to. They organize Tweetcrawls to gather with friends at preselected venues. Wise businesses will try to get on the Tweetcrawler’s radar and become a desired destination. People planning other events are wise to try and use social media in a similar manner to draw people to their events.
Another profession, very closely tied to where we live that has always relied on personal networks is realtors. More and more realtors are recognizing the power of social media as a tool to grow their personal networks.
The goal of PodCamp Connecticut is to draw together around three hundred people from all walks of life to share their thoughts, ideas and experiences of social media and how it affects where we work, play and live.
This then comes to the format. I often comment about being an unconference purist. Every session should be a discussion with a facilitator and note taker, but no presentations. A good unconference starts off with a brief discussion setting the framework for the day and doing very quick introductions. I like the style of each person saying their name, where they’re from and three words about themselves, very quickly and moving on. This can work with very large crowds and be very revealing.
Then, people write ideas for sessions they would like to attend on sheets of paper. The sheets get sorted, duplicates combined and the most popular put on a board to list when and where the topic will be discussed. People go to a session and talk about what they are interested in. If they aren’t interested, they exercise the rule of two feet, walk out, and find a session that fits them better.
This is one of the reasons why presentations generally don’t work well at unconferences. The items to be discussed need to be what everyone in the room is looking for, and not some preconceived idea that a presenter has. Too often, I’ve seen people set on doing presentations be disappointed because people don’t want to listen to their presentations. They either interrupt and pull the session back to a discussion that doesn’t follow the presentation, or they simply walk out.
Yet this approach of unconferences is new to many people, and some people find the idea challenging to start with. However, when they think about so many conferences where they’ve sat and listened to a panel talk for forty-five minutes, with the only real value coming with the statements from the audience, converted Jeopardy-style, to questions for the Q&A during the last ten minutes, they often quickly realize the value of the unconference.
Will this group of social media enthusiasts be able to pull off a successful unconference about social media in Connecticut? If there is any group of people that can pull it off, this group seems well positioned. In addition, experienced campers from other PodCamps and BarCamps in the surrounding area are offering to help out. Given the interest in Tweet Crawls and other social media gatherings here in Connecticut, it seems like a great crowd can be gathered. I sure hope so. I’m looking forward to it.
LoKast: A Disposal Social Network?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 03/15/2010 - 09:06Today at SxSW, NearVerse is launching their iPhone app, LoKast. The application lets people locally share content from their iPhones, iPod Touches, or iPads. There are plans to go cross platform in the future after some of their other applications get launched.
LoKast looks like a really cool app. In a press release, they about swapping demo CDs or video reels and how with LoKast you can do it easily from your iPhone. It uses a combination of WiFi and Bluetooth so that you can swap content even when the 3G network is swamped. It seems like the great tool for artists touting their wares at SxSW, but it seems like it has a lot of other interesting potentials.
The video that they have produced for the launch makes it look like the tool for parties, or networking events. I could easily see some gathering where everyone is LoKasting their pitches; speed networking or speed dating on iPhone steroids.
Beyond that, I’ve been to movie theatres that share video clips via Bluetooth. I’ve never gotten it to work, but LoKast could end up being a nicer way to do it. For that matter, there are a lot of interesting ways this could be used for other types of marketing; just imagine a local grocery store that LoKasts specials – You could add the Green Giant to your disposal network.
Yet there are other features that don’t get talked about quite as much. For example, they have shared browsing. Instead of trying to get everyone to look over your shoulder as you browse a specific site, with LoKast, it appears as if everyone could pick up your signal and watch the websites you’re visiting on their own iPhones.
The press release says they think LoKast will be this year’s breakout mobile app. We’ll see. It depends on how quickly they can get people load the app and spread the word. I know that if I were at SxSW this year and I was carrying an iPhone, I’d want LoKast on it. Instead, I’ll have to wait until they get it on the Nokia N900 and I can use it at some other venue, like a Podcamp or Falcon Ridge Folk Festival.
