Endless Knots

Face-to-face for the Oreo tweet

Being a three-screen watcher of the Stupor Bowl, which tells you a lot about my interest in football (see for example, The Stronger Women Get, The More Men Love Football, introduced to me by my nevertheless-Patriots-loving Daughter #1), I had a great time tweeting during the famous Lights-out of 2013. (Further disclosure: When the Pats are winning, I can't resist regional pride.)

Thus the now-famous Oreo tweet came up right away in my feed, even though I don't follow the cookie (never mind, I can taste it just thinking of it, scraping my teeth across the icing, dissolving the cookie on my tongue -- you're welcome, Nabisco, for the commercial).

Which made me curious about how decisions were made such that the tweet was up nearly simultaneously with lights-out. Lacking the time to turn this into investigative journalism requiring my actually contacting the ad agency responsible for it (360i.com), I did the next best thing: I read the posts from others. 

According to Buzzfeed's "How Oreo Got that Twitter Ad Up So Fast" (thank you, Rachel Sanders), the answer is co-location:

"We had a mission control set up at our office with the brand and 360i, and when the blackout happened, the team looked at it as an opportunity," agency president Sarah Hofstetter told BuzzFeed. "Because the brand team was there, it was easy to get approvals and get it up in minutes."

...The key? Having Oreo executives in the room, ready to pull the trigger.

My questions: Could they have made the decision as quickly if everyone was not in the room? Who came up with the idea originally? Were they shouting to one another? Sharing one large screen? Several? Were the Oreo execs making the call on every tweet (they had a near constant flood of tweets, of which this was only one)? Had they set out operating agreements for what would go live and what needed approval beforehand? Were the most senior Oreo execs online and watching the quick-acting team that garnered so much buzz so quickly?

Someone will make this a case study in social media, for sure. And it will be interesting to see what lessons are drawn about collaboration and proximity from it.

 

 

 

 

 

Following directions from paperblog

I was approached by paperblog.com, asking if I'd like to register my blog with them. After consulting my panel of experts, i.e. I posted a notice in my status on Facebook, asking if anyone knew anything about paperblog, I decided to do it. Paperblog is an aggregator, based in Paris, with a nice layout and nice content so, hey, thanks, er, merci, Emma@paperblog for asking.

After several failed attempts to register (not sure why), I received this note from Emma this morning:

Hi Jessica,

We see that you have successfully submitted your blog. Before your articles can appear on Paperblog however, there is one last step- you must authorize your blog by following the steps on this page: http://en.paperblog.com/flux/validate/

The easiest way to do this would be to add the Paperblog phrase to any existing or new article on your blog: I confirm the subscription of this blog to the Paperblog service under the username jlipnack

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Best Wishes,
Emma

Therefore:

I confirm the subscription of this blog to the Paperblog service under the username jlipnack

"Make bureaucracy sexy"

Give yourself the gift of 12 minutes listening to Jennifer Pahlka's TED talk, "Coding a Better Government." She knows. Jen founded and is executive director of Code for America. Simple description: "Helps governments work better for everyone with the people and the power of the web."

 

I met Jen about five years ago when she called asking me to participate in what became Enterprise 2.0, then called Collaborate 2.0 ... I think. Liked her instantly. Plus she gave her daughter one of the all-time very cool names: Clementine.

We'll be posting more on this shortly but in the meantime listen to what she has to say. This great quote is at about 9 minutes.

 

 

Password, shmashword

 

Whoever thought this would become a problem back in the 20th century? How much time do you spend searching for the clever password you used for some random site? Time to upgrade your passwording skills because there are a bunch of REALLY bad ones according to this post by Zoe Fox for Massable that's making the rounds. For example, don't use "password." More from the article:

SplashData created the rankings based on millions of stolen passwords posted online by hackers. Here is the complete list:

• 1. password
• 2. 123456
• 3.12345678
• 4. qwerty
• 5. abc123
• 6. monkey
• 7. 1234567
• 8. letmein
• 9. trustno1
• 10. dragon
• 11. baseball
• 12. 111111
• 13. iloveyou
• 14. master
• 15. sunshine
• 16. ashley
• 17. bailey
• 18. passw0rd
• 19. shadow
• 20. 123123
• 21. 654321
• 22. superman
• 23. qazwsx
• 24. michael
• 25. football

 

 

The New Urban Mechanics

Now this is a really good idea from the City of Boston. Those in the Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics have 21-century toolbelts, according to this article from Governing, naming "Mechanics" Nigel Jacob and Chris Osgood "The 2011 Public Officials of the Year:"

When it comes to government innovation -- especially during tough times -- some of the best ideas come from thinking small. That’s the notion behind the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, a unique Boston IT agency focused on finding innovative ways to deliver services and increase citizen engagement. It’s like an in-house R&D shop for the city, and the two-person team that leads the office -- Nigel Jacob (left) and Chris Osgood -- says that a flexible focus on micro-projects is key. Most of the projects cost about $10,000, which may be subsidized through a combination of city operations funds and contributions from nonprofit and private partners. “In order to get these products up and running as quickly as possible and start showing value as quickly as possible, we try to make them as bite-sized as possible,” Jacob says.

But Jacob and Osgood’s small-scale focus has yielded big results. Their signature product, a maintenance-request app called Citizens Connect, has been downloaded more than 16,000 times and replicated in more than 20 countries since it was launched in 2009...

 

WebSite Story

Perfect. Thanks to Georges Grinstein who put me on to this, for all of us online fanatics. Just wait until you get to the line about Evite... or eHarmony... or ... just sit back and e(n)joy!

 

New look for Newton's site

Perhaps you know the City of Newton, Mass., for its school system. Even as a child growing up in Pennsylvania, I envied the kids who lived in Newton, whose high school was among the top in the country. There's been plenty o' controversy over Newton's schools in the past few decades but the city remains one of the great locales in the U.S. I could go on - and have - but, suffice to say, with 13 villages (including ours of West Newton), countless trees, several parks, many playgrounds, cheap eats and expensive ones, bakeries, movie theatres (two technically), youth and adult sports leagues, commuter rail and T into Boston, and, as per my obsession, summer farmers' markets--not to mention a therapist in every other house, should you be in need--it's a great place to live.

Now we have a new (young) mayor, Setti Warren, among whose first acts is sprucing up the city's website. I hope the webmasters do live up to the promise on the refurbished homepage to "making this website one of the best municipal sites in the country."

2010!

As promised, back after a digital break. Those used to seeing me affixed to a screen have been asking what it was like to go offline for nearly two weeks. Quite pleasant. I liked being free of the burden; of sitting without wonder as to whether I'd received a response -- or of fidgeting with guilt because I hadn't responded to a request. In the interest of honesty, that dreaded cloak, I did log on twice to deal with financial matters. I did answer my phone and respond to texts but missed a number because I didn't keep my phone by my side. And, since I apparently cannot live without some modicum of guilt, I fretted that I hadn't informed some people that I would be taking a break. But all of us survived. Try it sometime.

Blogging for real writers - redux

Come join me for "Blogging for Real Writers," which I'm teaching for the first time at Solstice Summer Writers' Conference this coming Monday, June 22, 4:30. I taught Version 1.0 of this course in the Pine Manor MFA program, then revised it for the leadership of the Army's Command and General Staff College, and now am buffing it up again for Solstice's fifth anniversary year.

At Pine Manor College, Chestnut Hill, Mass., directions here.

It's good to be green

Further to my post earlier today, Tweeters are changing their locations to Tehran, changing their time zone to GMT +3:30, and coloring their avatars green.

I got this tip via: "@ronanvance This from @johnperrybarlow @warrenellis change settings to GMT +03:30 & home city Tehran to confuse the Iranian censors"

Thanks, guys. Here's the link to all the tweets on #Iranelection.