Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Check out RobertJMitchell.info
Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you know that I will be continuing my blog posts at my personal website robertjmitchell.info . Hope to see you there!
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Hold up Google, are you serious?
Recently, when you Google News keyword search for Richard Parsons, Time Warner CEO, one of the most prominent black executives in corporate America, the results of the search had you looking at a photo of two rhesus monkeys. Yes monkeys!However, Parsons is part of no monkey business. Parson will depart as CEO of Time Warner Inc. at the end of the year, five years after taking the helm of the world's largest media conglomerate and rebuilding its stature following a disastrous merger with AOL.
Was this a racist move or simple computer glitch?
And since the Don Imus incident, are we on high alert about anything that may seem racially motivated in today’s media?
According to a Google spokesman, the glitch was an inside job and blames its computers and algorithms. Why mention inside job and computer problems in the same sentence? It’s an either or factor here. Google went on to decline to openly discuss details of the primate episode and even unwilling to go on record and explicitly disavow any racist motivation.
After doing a search today, the problem has seemed to be resolved. Whether intended or unintended, the Google situation highlights that the technology industry is not immune to social consciousness nor can we simply point the finger at a search engine, because this issue is much bigger then that.
Save Ellis Island
It's not often that I find myself clicking on banner ads on a website. After being online for 4 or 5 hours each day you start to become immune to them after a while. Today was different.
As I was checking the news on CNN, I ran across the ad that I have placed above and found myself drawn to it for a couple of reasons. First, being a fan of The Soprano's, when I saw Johnny Sack's (Vincent Curatola) face it got me paying attention. Second, the slogan "It would be a good idea you made a donation" isn't exactly something that you see every day in an ad (even if it isn't grammatically correct). Third, the other slogan of the ad, "Save Ellis Island," easily invokes curiousity. I for one, know a little about Ellis Island (where it is and it's significance), but I had no idea it was in need of "saving." Fourth, as much as a corporate sponsorship would usually turn me off from clicking on an ad, the fact that Arrow was sponsoring this (and the whole Save Ellis Island campaign), somehow lent credence to the idea that this was a serious campaign with a serious problem.
Even though this is probably one of the best internet banner ads that I've ever come across, what is even more amazing is what happens when you click on it. weareellisisland.com has to be one of the best advocacy websites that I have ever seen. The videos and images evoked feelings of heritage and history that still have me sitting here with goosebumps. One video in particular has me at a loss for words... The images, the music, everything is perfect. Take a look...
Personally, I don't know if any of my ancestors came through Ellis Island or not, but I have to say that this video has left me wanting to find out.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Prehistoric women were fashionable, who knew?
A headline can make or break an article. An article posted on MSNBC.com recently caught my attention based on the headline, “Prehistoric women had a passion for fashion.” In Plocnik, Serbia, excavations point to a sophisticated metropolis with a taste for art and fashion. The article describes how archaeologists recently uncovered a Neolithic figurine of a girl in a short skirt and ornate top. The tribe lived between 5400-4700 BC at what is now Plocnik and knew about trade, handcrafts, art, and metallurgy. A thermal well might be evidence of Europe’s oldest spas, and this tribe pursued beauty by making clothes and jewelry. The most significant find, however, was the discovery of a sophisticated metal workshop with furnace tools including a copper chisel, which might prove that the Copper Age started in Europe at least 500 years earlier than believed. I don’t normally read articles on archaeology, but this one caught my attention solely because of the headline. A few words hooked me into reading a whole article about the Copper Age, which I actually thought was pretty interesting.
The New Age of Research
With the mobile culture that young people have adopted recently, tracking down college students in the greater D.C. area to attend a focus group about Metro policies must not be easy. Or is it?
Last week sometime I logged into my Facebook account to find an invitation to that very focus group. The creator of the event works for the research group who is conducting the focus group and he had invited a whole lot of his college age "friends" on the social networking site to participate. Other age groups were apparently invited through other means. After all, how many middle aged and elderly people have Facebook profiles?
The interesting part of the invitation was the number of people who had to be invited through Facebook in order to get a reasonable number of people to RSVP "yes" to the event. To get 7 confirmed guests, there is one "might show up" response, 22 people who said "no," and 20 people never responded to the invitation. So what does this say about communicating with young people?
Even though the image of the young professional or college/graduate student today is attached to the cell phone and the PDA, we are so mobile in a physical sense that tracking us down still proves to be difficult. That serves as quite a problem to researchers whose job it is to get people of all ages to participate in events such as focus groups. The incentive had better be pretty good to get us to sit in a room for an hour and discuss something other than our Master's thesis or Monday Night Football.
If researchers realize these sort of problems they should come up with new ways to approach young people when requesting their input. What about a focus group in a sports bar? Buy everyone a round of Cokes and start with game talk. Then get down to business. Don't disguise the fact that it's a focus group on Metro policies or whatever the topic, but accept the fact that to get some research done you have to accomodate your respondents.
I doubt very much that focus groups will ever be run this way, but who is to say that they wouldn't be successful?
Last week sometime I logged into my Facebook account to find an invitation to that very focus group. The creator of the event works for the research group who is conducting the focus group and he had invited a whole lot of his college age "friends" on the social networking site to participate. Other age groups were apparently invited through other means. After all, how many middle aged and elderly people have Facebook profiles?
The interesting part of the invitation was the number of people who had to be invited through Facebook in order to get a reasonable number of people to RSVP "yes" to the event. To get 7 confirmed guests, there is one "might show up" response, 22 people who said "no," and 20 people never responded to the invitation. So what does this say about communicating with young people?
Even though the image of the young professional or college/graduate student today is attached to the cell phone and the PDA, we are so mobile in a physical sense that tracking us down still proves to be difficult. That serves as quite a problem to researchers whose job it is to get people of all ages to participate in events such as focus groups. The incentive had better be pretty good to get us to sit in a room for an hour and discuss something other than our Master's thesis or Monday Night Football.
If researchers realize these sort of problems they should come up with new ways to approach young people when requesting their input. What about a focus group in a sports bar? Buy everyone a round of Cokes and start with game talk. Then get down to business. Don't disguise the fact that it's a focus group on Metro policies or whatever the topic, but accept the fact that to get some research done you have to accomodate your respondents.
I doubt very much that focus groups will ever be run this way, but who is to say that they wouldn't be successful?
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Abu Ghraib at AU
Tonight from 5:00-7:30p.m., the AU Museum, Center for Social Media and Washington College of Law's Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law will present the acclaimed documentary Ghosts of Abu Ghraib in conjunction with the exhibition Fernando Botero: Abu Ghraib. The film, featured on HBO and in the American Documentary Competition at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, is an in-depth look into the psychological and political contexts of the torture in the Iraqi prison. Producer Liz Garbus will be in attendance to discuss the making of the film.
Fernando Botero: Abu Ghraib marks the first complete showing in the
AU was chosen to display the works for its long-standing commitment to international human rights. The film and exhibition are important to the public discourse. As AU Museum Director and Curator Jack Rasmussen claims, “Our students, faculty and, especially, the
The screening of Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, will be held at the Katzen Arts Centertonight at 5:30 p.m. and Fernando Botero: Abu Ghraib will begin at 6:00pm.
Sources: http://www.american.edu/cas/katzen/event_description.cfm?event=500
http://www.american.edu/cas/katzen/museum/exhibitions.cfm
http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/events/2007_hrfs/695
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
A Chance for Answers
Unlike Cindy Sheehan, the ever-suffering military mom who demanded a meeting with President Bush after her son was killed in action, Donna Zovko is going to get to meet with the man she holds responsible for the death of her son.
Jerry Zovko was killed in Iraq while working as a security contractor for Blackwater, and she is haunted by the image of her son being dragged through the streets and mutilated on camera. She has appeared on tv herself, appealing to Blackwater Chairman Erik Prince to speak to her about her son's death.
Donna Zovko told CNN.com that Blackwater chief Prince showed an interest in doing the right thing after the terrifying death of her son, but she was disappointed with the lack of information given to her about the circumstances involved in the incident. She is still looking for answers to the many questions she has.
Prince is doing the right thing by agreeing to speak to Zovko. Blackwater has faced a great deal of controversy about their role in several incidents in Iraq, and the for the chairman to speak to a mother of one of the victims of such an incident will help the company combat the negative image it has acquired. In this case, being upfront with information will help improve how the public sees the company.
source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/07/mom.blackwater/index.html
Jerry Zovko was killed in Iraq while working as a security contractor for Blackwater, and she is haunted by the image of her son being dragged through the streets and mutilated on camera. She has appeared on tv herself, appealing to Blackwater Chairman Erik Prince to speak to her about her son's death.
Donna Zovko told CNN.com that Blackwater chief Prince showed an interest in doing the right thing after the terrifying death of her son, but she was disappointed with the lack of information given to her about the circumstances involved in the incident. She is still looking for answers to the many questions she has.
Prince is doing the right thing by agreeing to speak to Zovko. Blackwater has faced a great deal of controversy about their role in several incidents in Iraq, and the for the chairman to speak to a mother of one of the victims of such an incident will help the company combat the negative image it has acquired. In this case, being upfront with information will help improve how the public sees the company.
source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/07/mom.blackwater/index.html
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