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http://www.comingsoon.net/news/videonews.php?id=59300

Making the Grade

An emotional look at how millions of children are struggling to find their way in the stratified, unyielding educational class system of today’s American classroom.

…but if they pass, the story is…

Riding the Curve

A unblinking examination of how America’s most gifted students are being made to ‘dumb down’ their performance so they fit better into the ‘standardized testing’ model of America’s educators.

If you have an accident on the way to work, its…

Under the Influence

The tell-all story of how your life is in danger, everyday, thanks to outdated traffic laws and the degradation of our highways and street system.

Or if your yelled at by your boss, its…

Amazing Grace

The story of how the loss of civility and respect is negatively impacting the American workplace – and how we are will all ultimately suffer as we fall behind other nations in the workplace civility race.

I love to look at the world through this filter – mainly because 1) it makes everything seem important, 2) there is a conspiracy behind everything that happens, and 3) none of it is my fault.

Try the documentary filter for yourself. It can’t hurt…

I love to look at the world through this filter.

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.

I do suppose there are others, though, who are getting used to the other extreme – the micro-commute from their bedrooms to their literal home office.  I have done that too. But, It’s very challenging to get yourself motivated, and then once motivated, to keep yourself from doing household chores that easily distract you from your work – oh, how those chores flew from that list…

But, these days, I work and live in a New Urbanism community called, New Town, in Saint Charles, MO. Look it up, http://www.newtownatstcharles.com/ . It’s a picturesque community where we eat, work, live, play, etc. – which, by the way, can get monotonous. But, we do know most of our neighbors and our children have the run of the town. It’s very much like living in a small town of yesteryear – or, at least where I grew up, in a neighborhood on the Southwest Side of Chicago.

Of course, we do still drive a fair amount, but now it’s because we want to, not because we have to.  And, the answer to that question, “How does that work, exactly?” Well, mostly I ride my bike.

Documentary films had been produced well before Woodstock happened but in 1969, a new crop of filmmakers were just starting to come on the scene. In fact, there were a bunch of filmmakers fighting for the chance to document the festival. Michael Wadleigh, The Maysles Brothers, Thelma Shoonmaker and a young man by the name of Marty Scorsese were all up for the job. Ultimately, the promoters of the concert decided to go with the more unknown team of Wadleigh, Scorsese and Shoonmaker as opposed to going with the Maysles Brothers because Wadleigh and his crew were willing to work for free. Woodstock Ventures was out of money and told Wadleigh that they could not pay for the film two days before the concert started. Wadleigh, ever ambitious and starving anyway, had nothing to lose. They decided that the festival and the opportunity was too great to pass up so they went to the concert and fronted the costs themselves.

For three days, Wadleigh, Scorsese and their small crew shot the festival around the clock. They were there when Richie Havens was unexpectedly pushed on stage to start the show and they were there when Jimmy Hendrix hauntingly closed the festival with the Star Spangled Banner. Having unlimited access, they sat back and observed what was happening around them. Like good documentarians do, they let the camera, the music and the people be the instruments for the storytelling.

As the first day went on, it became very clear to the event organizers that the documentary was their ticket out of the 1.6 millions dollar hole they had put themselves in due to the loss of ticket sales . While Jefferson Airplane played, the four men of Woodstock Ventures stood on stage negotiating the film rights with Wadleigh and Ahmet Ertegun of Warner Brothers. They sold the film to Warner Brothers for a $1 million dollar flat fee with a small percentage of the back end. Wadleigh estimated later that the film cost about $100,000 to produce and to date, the film has grossed over $100 million dollars. It also went on to win the 1970 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, solidifying itself as one of the most successful documentaries of all time.

After Woodstock, the Maysles Brother’s, probably motivated by the fact they lost out on Woodstock, produced a string of successful films including, “Gimme Shelter.” The documentary chronicles The Rolling Stones “west coast answer” to Woodstock, Altamonte.  In “Grey Gardens” they introduced us to big Edie and Little Edie Beale and the film became a critical smash that was later made into a hit Broadway play as well as an EMMY nominated feature film for HBO in 2009. Lifelong collaborators, Scorsese and Shoonmaker met musicians Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm of The Band at the festival, and the filmmakers teamed up with The Band to film their last ever concert together. “The Last Waltz” was filmed in San Francisco in 1976 and the documentary is highly regarded as the best concert film of all time. As for Michael Wadleigh, taking a chance paid off. He saved Woodstock, won an Academy Award, motivated the Maysles Brothers to make more films and launched the careers of Martin Scorsese and Thelma Shoonmaker. The festival itself was something that can never happen again. For a moment in time, the last gasp of the sixties, people came together to promote peace, love and music. In the process and without manufacturing it, a new wave of film making was born. For that, we documentarians and total film geeks are eternally grateful.

We, as Americans, have something that many in the world do not – the freedom to say what we want, when we want, about almost anyone or anything we choose – also known as the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Today, the First Amendment is being utilized by a consistently growing number of people.  Blogs, tweets, facebook pages, you name it and it’s being used to express opinions that, in many other countries, would cause the law to knock on someone’s door.

The moral of the story – become engaged.  Speak your voice.  If you care about something, anything, and you want others to care too, let them know about it.  The tools are there, you just need to find the right ones for you and run with them.

Sally, Chris and I will be posting more thoughts about NCHCMM soon, but I wanted to highlight a few points from John Whyte’s closing plenary. He’s the chief medical expert at Discovery Health Channel (you can read his blog here) and had some great insights about actually reaching the public with public health and social marketing messaging.

Three key points:

- Social Media/the Internet is important and growing, but broadcast media (television) is by far where people spend most of their leisure time.

- Stories actually make an impact. Nothing engages people like a story, and harnessing this power can advance a public health message more than a water-tight, perfectly crafted traditional marketing campaign. Consider using primetime television as a vehicle for your message.

- Empower, educate, and entertain.

We’ve been discussing the power of emotional, story-based social marketing with clients for years, and so it was nice to have this perspective succinctly backed up by Dr. Whyte. To underline this point, here’s an oldie-but-goodie Banyan favorite that drives home the need for social marketing and public health messaging to engage and entertain:

It is the easiest thing in the world for me to go to Twitter and, within 140 characters, announce that I have just been abducted  by aliens and that they come in peace to save our world, (only if I’m installed as Supreme Being, by the way).  But since I posted this declaration in a social media space I don’t have to explain the alien’s plans; share how they got here or where they are from; show why I’m the only one who can see them – I don’t have to be responsible for anything pertaining to what I’ve said.  That’s the down-side of one way communication.  Now, I really don’t think many people would take my claim very seriously, (since I’m prone to delusions of grandeur, or so says my Psychologist), but if I was a Congressman, Senator, radio talk show host, religious leader, or TV pundit – you know, people we all used to respect and whose opinions we valued – and I used social media to talk about fear instead of solutions or ideologies instead of ideas, I could probably influence a lot of people in our nation to become afraid, angry, unfocused, and hopeless – without being responsible for explaining myself or looking at how these type of statements do more harm than good.

I guess my point is, when it comes to social media, go ahead and embrace it, use it, love it – just don’t believe everything you read. Not everyone is as reasonable, balanced and well intentioned as you or I.  And don’t forget – look to the sky, the time is nigh upon us, which is why I’m having my crown fitted tomorrow.  Why wait ‘til the last minute?

The other night we awoke to this tremendously loud roar from outside, sometime around 3:00am.  A helicopter hovered just above our window, close enough to see the numbers clearly printed on its underbelly.  Police lights were bouncing off the walls from various directions.  We couldn’t see what the reason was for all the activity.  The helicopter just hovered there in place for over two hours, then slowly made its way up the river and disappeared.

The next morning, emergency personnel – fire trucks, ambulances, and divers – crowded the harbor directly across from us.  Harbor police and uniformed men in kayaks floated up and down the river, obviously looking for something.  It was a rainy, cold day and all the people that regularly walked around the area were gone except for a straggler or two walking a dog.  It was really quiet except for all the activity from these men.

A policeman explained to us that three young men in their twenties had stolen a small row boat and floated it up the river at around 2:00am.  They had been drinking and were “messing about” as the policeman said.  One of the men fell out of the boat and couldn’t get back in.  His two friends jumped in to help him, capsizing the boat.  One man was washed up to shore further down the river; another clung to another boat until he was rescued.  But, the first man who fell into the river couldn’t get out.  We’re told his friend who washed up to shore saw him wave for help and then he called the police.  But, they didn’t arrive in time.  The emergency crews that morning were actually looking for his body.

Several hours later, we saw everyone on the emergency crews run quickly to one part of the river.  Moments later, they carried him in a body bag up from the water and into a waiting van. It was shocking.  It was sad.  And, it clung to all of us each day as we thought about this poor man’s last moments and how distraught his family must be.  One silly decision had such tragic results.  That someone lost his life as we slept close by, also made no sense.  Wouldn’t the force of that moment wake us all up?  How could we sleep while someone fought so hard for his life?

That afternoon, not two hours after the last emergency truck drove away, a wedding party arrived absolutely unaware of what happened.  Resplendent in fancy dress, the wedding party and children lined up for photographs at the same spot this man’s body was recovered.  They were laughing and hopeful, climbing into a boat that would take them down the river.  Life goes on.

In the evening now, when the water rises and falls with the tide, it has a more somber affect on us.  Less is it about the beauty of the tide washing in and out; more it is about the force of nature and our very small place within it.

There are so many lessons in life we want to teach our children – don’t smoke, don’t drink and drive, don’t use violence….etc.  It would seem inconceivable to have to tell someone…don’t get drunk at one in the morning, steal a boat, and play about on the river.  We cannot cover each and every possible lesson that prepares our children for all the dangers they may face.  So shouldn’t we focus some of our social marketing and social media activities on teaching them that making a smart decision “in that moment” is the best and wisest way to live?  Teach them that to have the confidence that making a good decision won’t lose you any friends.  Be able to walk away from temptation knowing you’re doing the right thing.  Maybe if that young man had asked himself, “Is this smart?” he could have just decided not to do it and would be alive today.  Maybe not.  But, the message for me is clear.  We need to teach our kids to be independent thinkers so that no matter what opportunities face them, they make the right choice.

Here’s link to the story:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5955414/Search-teams-recover-mans-body-from-river.html