No surprise, but, the blogosphere was quick with their response: Beth Kanter summarizes the responses garnered by this post, and touches on the point that smaller metrics don’t necessary translate to actual change encouraged.

Geoff Livingston, of The Buzz Bin, also posted his take. As a practitioner working with both corporations and nonprofits, he notes that non-profits “get” social media better than businesses.

Which, in turn, brings me to my minor point. Isn’t the reason social media exists is to cut through the massive amounts of clutter caused by constant advertising broadcasting from corporations? So, following this line of reasoning, wouldn’t it follow that non-profits using social media inherently “get” social media? Their message, at the very least, is one that’s important to society, one that can and should be shared over a network where real, authentic, human dialogue is (and always should be) the name of the game.

In short, social media was made for social marketing. Which means, the problem doesn’t lie among the non-profits, as Seth Godin claims, but with companies, who can use it so, so wrongly.

This being my first professional mission, I went in slowly, kept my distance and made sure not to give myself away.  I knew these women would see right through me if I tried to become one of them, so I had to lay low and observe from a safe distance.  I stealthily dropped in to their domain.

To say this was unfamiliar territory, would be a major understatement.  The bright pink walls burnt my eyes, the constant gossip rang in my ears and that smell, I always thought it was a myth, but there it is, pickle juice.  I had hit the jackpot – what I need to know could be found here.

It took a little searching, I hit a few dead ends, but finally found the group I was looking for, “Smoking Mommies.”  I was stunned.  Here was a group of women, many obviously with child, puffing down on every size, brand and type of cigarette available (and a few puffing on a leafy substance not available at the mini-mart.)  The agency was sure to find all of this interesting.  I pulled out my little camera and snapped away, my audio recorder running, gathering everything they were saying.  It was at that moment I remembered I was no James Bond.  This was real life.

As I stared dumbfounded at my computer screen, my fingers running across the track pad, clicking through blog post after blog post, then numerous discussion pages and even the personal profile pages of many of the expectant mothers, I gained a further understanding of why I was sent to target these women through these social media networks.  These women were everywhere,  openly discussing a topic that, before my lurking mission, I had thought was a restricted to a small, isolated group.  How naive of me.

Findings in hand, we here at Banyan presented this information to the National Cancer Institute.  My first mission was a success.  The target had been acquired, now it was time for phase two, developing a plan of attack.

This “Social Media Lurking,” as we have come to call it, is an integral part in shaping the delivery of a social media message, what channels the message is sent over and who will find the message within these various channels.  Since that first mission, I have honed my skills, much like my mentor, 007.  We’ve put together quite an array of gadgets, allowing us to infiltrate our targeted groups even further and squeeze every last bit of information out of them that we need.

As the information becomes declassified, I’ll let everyone know about Phase 2.  But for now, just know that we’re out there…lurking about.

Also, Sean Connery is my favorite Bond.

Just pick a story – Clinton and Monica, Father Cutie (what a fitting name) rolling in the sand with a long-time girlfriend, John Edwards and whoever his alleged paramour is – even Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy and the teen ‘models’ he pays to attend parties.   What do they all have in common?  They live in the unblinking fishbowl of media attention.  They know they’re being watched all the time.  They know that the 24 hour cable news cycle is always hungry, and must be fed. But they still believe themselves to somehow be ‘invisible’ to the feeding frenzy of media scrutiny.  It’s like they think that they have a get out of jail free card, (sometimes literally, reference Larry Craig and his ‘wide stance’).  But, as recent events show, that’s not the case.

Goldfish can be excused for sometimes doing stupid stuff – accidentally flopping out of the bowl, eating their own waste – because they don’t know they’re being watched, but people who have sought a life in the glare of public media – be it politics, celebrity or even religion – cannot be so easily forgiven.

I really hope that Gov. Sanford proves to be telling the truth and he can explain away his weekend trip to Argentina  (the closet I’ve even been to Argentina on a weekend is a Gaucho Burger and a Corona – Mexico being at least in the same hemisphere).  But he should keep in mind that he’s always under the ‘bright lights’ –and that integrity is best defined as “doing the right thing even when nobody is watching.”

This is an interesting moment surely, and powerful, symbolic acknowledgement by the US Government of the significance of these tools in this sort of conflict. Can’t help but think of Radio Free Europe.