Blogs | Social Signal

Break out the propeller beanies: it's a gear-heavy episode this time. It starts with Rob talking about the swishy new voice recorder that will soon be replacing the combination of a 4th-generation iPod and Griffin iTalk. That'll mean much nicer sound... and the end of that hard-drive-spinning-up whine that we're guessing you won't miss at all.

I'll be speaking about crisis communications and the social web on Saturday at Northern Voice, the kick-ass Vancouver-based blogging conference now in its fourth year:

Imagine a situation where all eyes are on you or your organization, and you need to communicate quickly, clearly and effectively... probably under severe stress, with a lot more noise than signal out there.

It's called crisis communications. And whether it's something as serious and far-reaching as a natural disaster, or as personal as the arrival of a newborn, you'll want to be prepared.

Discover how organizations large and small use social media to keep the lines of communications open when it matters the most. Learn how to use blogs to correct misinformation and get your message out. And find out why you need to build relationships and networks now... before you need to use them.

Moderating the event is the one and only James Sherrett. Come on, come all - I've had a blast speaking at Northern Voice in the past... even when I had to loop in a fellow panelist by holding a cell phone up to the microphone.

We're proud to sponsor NV again this year; the inaugural conference, back in 2005, helped to spur the birth of Social Signal.

If you're interested in Web 2.0, blogging, podcasting, online video, virtual worlds, social networks, photo sharing and the like, you won't want to miss it. And if you're a beginner who wants to get your feet wet, then Friday's Internet boot camp is an absolute must.

See you there! 

Valentine's Day has come and gone, but we're not going to let an arbitrary deadline conspire with the flu to rob the Internets of the chance to hear a few more bedtime conversations from Alex and Rob.

We actually recorded episode 5 last week, just as various colds, flus and what appeared to be the Phage descended on our humble household.

But our household was also invaded by a more benevolent intruder: Alex's new iPhone, which works in Canada thanks to some startlingly well-written instructions she found online. (Link coming soon! Thanks, Hack that Phone!)

I knew this charade couldn't last forever.

How can we instill social values in our kids? That's a question Rob and I struggle with constantly. In its least subtle form, the inculcation can begin as early as eighteenth months, as we've learned this election season ("No, sweetie, we don't clap forthat man.") At three or four we can toss in a little more complexity ("We don't say Indian, we say First Nations") though no greater nuance ("That kind of car makes the trees cry.")

Tonight's symposium featured Michael Alexin, Oberlin College class of '79, V.P. of Softlines Design and Product Development at Target. Yes, this is the man responsible for keeping me clothed during my last pregnancy, and even tougher, the post-pregnancy pre-weight loss months.

Ben & Jerry took a correspondence course to learn how to make ice cream, and opened shop for the first time in May 1978. Then winter came, and people stopped buying ice cream. Jerry describes himself as the least creative and entrepreneurial person he knows -- it's all been Ben -- but he then came up with the company's best marketing idea ever:
PODCBZE. Percent off per degree celsius below zero.

I'm spending the next couple of days at my alma mater, Oberlin College, which is a small liberal arts college in northeast Ohio. Oberlin is best known for two things: its music conservatory (one of the top two or three in the country) and its strong tradition of supporting progressive social change. Oberlin was the first school in the U.S. to grant degrees to women, and the first to grant degrees to African-Americans, and has continued that tradition with strong campus and community involvement in everything from the underground railroad, the civil rights movement, opposition to the Vietnam war, and in my day, activism on gay rights, AIDS awareness, and action against the first war in Iraq.

This is the first time I've visited Oberlin since 2001, and it's extraordinary to be back here. My experience at Oberlin was everything people hope a college education can be: it expanded my intellectual horizons, balanced and deepened my political and social commitments, formed the basis for personal relationships and personal skills that have served me ever since, and was a hell of a great time, too. My time here was so fundamental to who I've become, and such a truly happy time in my life, that visiting here feels like a return to home in a profound way.

I graduated from Oberlin in 1992, and on this visit, I'm also struck by how very long ago that now feels. My attachment to Oberlin has made it a recurring place in my dreams over the year, and after so many years away, it now seems more familiar as a place I visit in dreamland than as a place I actually lived. As I see some of the faculty friends I've stayed in touch with over the years, I realize I'm now at the age and life stage they were at when I was an undergraduate. And then there is the most obvious change: students now walk around talking on cell phones.

I'm here for a symposium on entrepreneurship; I'm speaking tomorrow about social entrepreneurship in particular. In this context, I'm thinking a lot about how my experience at Oberlin contributed to my development as a (then future) entrepreneur. I started a couple of campus groups, gaining experience that in retrospect was key to my learning how to start stuff. And what I learned about social movements -- in class no less -- that has evolved into part of our business knowledge.

One of the things I spent some time studying -- in a preliminary way -- was ethical business practice. My very last paper at Oberlin was about labour relations at Ben & Jerry's, which provided a great excuse to think about what responsible business looked like while eating a lot of ice cream. I was totally obsessed with Ben & Jerry's at that time; when I get home I'll dig out and scan the photo of my freezer just before my 21st birthday party, when it was full of about 15 pints of ice cream, representing every available B&J flavor. So it's a great thrill that the first keynote of the symposium is being presented by Jerry Greenfield (Oberlin '73), who is talking about his own experience with entrepreneurship.

I'm live blogging Jerry's keynote -- and despite time changing, I'm still the only person in the room with an open laptop! It feels a little incongruous, but it does help counteract this feeling of being SO old.