CNN ran a spot highlighting that ABC news and their employers reached a settlement to be reimbursed for non-work hours blackberry time. The clip is below. I would like to take it a step further and ask how you manage your time while having such a device. I find it that the more responsive I am, the more folks assume I will always be as responsive. If I am not quick to respond, then many clients, coworkers, friends, and family tend to take it personal.
So the question is… is creating an expectation of responsiveness a good thing?
The race for the newest opt-in tool or gadget has given way to a more transparent real time reflection of your day to day life, and we are signing up for it eagerly.
Is this a bad thing?
Folks know I am down with the social networks. I am able to maintain the many personal and professional connections that I have made via the tweets, the facebook messages, or the old school txt messages back and forth. I am… plugged in. I am down with that fact. My previous post mentioned some concerns I have had balancing the two worlds while I am this plugged in, which apparently many also have concern with, bult ultimatly I am down and plugged in.
The latest technology I have been a fan of is online video and in real time. I have fooled around with Qik and ooVoo. I am completely addicted to Seesmic. More technology like Conversa and Phreadz are in the works. With 3G technology being bridged with real time streaming to web combined with a “follow me” technology like BriteKite and Fire Eagle, is this level of transparency a good thing?
We previously spoke about building your personal brand and being confident in who you are while using such social networks. In the world of public affairs, public relations, and marketing these networks are a way to stay plugged in with your peers. If you’re not online and using these systems… you are behind the game. You voluntarily sign up as to keep up. This voluntary sign up is opening your day to day life into a wider audience. Is this seemingly narcissistic behavior a good thing?
We are in essence jumping up and down at the next tool to make our life less private and more accessible to the world.
Are you down for your life to be open source?
What is the fine line that makes you too nervous to cross?
I often try to figure out how to balance personal and professional in the online world of facebook, twitter, blogs and the like. I know many of you have many personal contacts on these online social networks, but also have professional contacts as well. So recently I opened this up for discussion over on seesmic. I was really pleased with the response that many try hard balance this as well. I would love to know your thoughts on this.
Here was one of the greatest responses from this online conversation.
For more responses, click on the conversation videos on the left:
Sorry I have not posted much on the SpidelBlog much. We kicked off the PAC on Wednesday, and brought on a new client this week via BlueDynamic, so it has been kinda nuts. I am leaving tomorrow to New Orleans, LA for one of our clients to prepare for a national media campaign during the General Election around the issues of Gulf Coast Recovery.
During this past week and while in NOLA I have played and will be playing with some new technology for both SpidelBlog and BlueDynamic. You saw the podcast live on Wednesday night. Not the best quality, but the concept is there. I will be trying to podcast live from NOLA to test the cell phone networks on quality. The goal is to create real time high quality video for our future projects (such as blogging live from the floor at both DNCC and RNC.)
You can see some of this work on the media section of BlueDynamic, but we have a lot more to upload and play around with. You will start to see some of this technology pop up on political sites that are our clients. So stay tuned. Until then… consider SpidelBloe my beta blog to test it all out :)
You will see some of this stuff while I am in NOLA the next few days. Feel free to comment on the quality and provide some feedback overall.
Sign a brief pledge that you’re not down with torture or the existance of Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and one of the pixels in the disturbing photo that represents the prison fades to black.
That pixel is yours forever; your name pops up in a little balloon over it.
GoodStorm’s MixTape Widget Spreads the Word About Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur GoodStorm CEO Yobie Benjamin, Former Political Prisoner, Gives Back to the Organization That Helped Free Him
GoodStorm, a progressive e-commerce and digital music company, has teamed up with Amnesty International (AI) and the online community to launch a viral music campaign to promote Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur.
GoodStorm’s MixTape widget, easily installed on any blog or social network, allows people to both hear and buy the music of Instant Karma and sign the campaign’s online petition. MixTape plays music samples directly from a blog or social network page and points users to iTunes to purchase Instant Karma songs. Activists also can endorse the Instant Karma petition directly from the widget. MixTape installs via a quick cut and paste of a few lines of code. It is available in three widths, and is customized for use with Facebook, TypePad and WordPress.
GoodStorm’s CEO Yobie Benjamin is a former political prisoner who credits AI’s activism with having kept him inspired and alive while incarcerated. A student activist in the Philippines under the Marcos dictatorship, Benjamin was arrested in 1977 after helping to organize a student organization to question and oppose martial law. He was held for seven months, much of that time in solitary confinement, was tortured while in detention, and lived under the continual threat of summary execution. A postcard from AI activist Deborah Kaufman, which Benjamin kept with him for the duration of his imprisonment, served as a talisman of hope. Pressure from Amnesty International facilitated Benjamin’s release. He is today a thriving entrepreneur in California’s Bay Area, and his company’s work on MixTape is one of the many ways Benjamin gives back to the AI movement. He still has Kaufman’s postcard, which read, “You can imprison a revolutionary, but you cannot imprison a revolution.”
Benjamin says, “We believe that millions of people online are eager to be part of Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s legacy of peace and justice. Our MixTape widget technology will make it possible for everyone to be part of this global campaign of compassion and activism. Using the power of viral internet technologies, we will be able to sustain the global campaign over many months and potentially in millions of social networks and Web sites of righteous and peace-loving people.”
In a historic effort to mobilize activism around the human rights atrocities occurring in Darfur, Sudan, more than 50 international recording artists and more than 30 record labels have united behind Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur. The collection features iconic songs by legendary musician and peace activist John Lennon recorded by an array of best-selling artists and will be available for purchase both on CD and as digital downloads via online retailers.
The rights to Lennon’s songs were generously donated by Yoko Ono, who has donated all music publishing royalties. Amnesty International chose to harness the power of Lennon’s music to inspire a new generation of activists to stand up for human rights. Proceeds from CD and digital sales will support Amnesty International and its campaign to focus attention and mobilize activism around the urgent catastrophe in Darfur, and other human rights crises.
Instant Karma, a two-CD set, released by Warner Bros. Records and produced by the music industry legend Jeff Ayeroff, goes on sale June 12. The campaign boasts a stellar line-up of 23 world-class artists from a variety of genres putting their own unique spin on classic songs from Lennon’s solo songbook. The artists–who come from the worlds of rock, pop, hip-hop and country–include longtime activists U2 (”Instant Karma”), Green Day (”Working Class Hero”), R.E.M., (”#9 Dream”) and Jackson Browne (”Oh, My Love”); female pop powerhouses Christina Aguilera (”Mother”), Avril Lavigne (”Imagine”), and Corinne Bailey Rae (”I’m Losing You”); country stars Big & Rich (”Nobody Told Me”); alternative favorites Snow Patrol (”Isolation”), The Flaming Lips (”(Just Like) Starting Over”), Postal Service (”Grow Old With Me”) and Regina Spektor (”Real Love”); best-selling rockers Aerosmith (”Give Peace a Chance”), Lenny Kravitz (”Cold Turkey”) and Los Lonely Boys (”Whatever Gets You Thru The Night”); and pensive singer-songwriters Jakob Dylan with Dhani Harrison (”Gimme Some Truth”) and Ben Harper (”Beautiful Boy”).
“It’s wonderful that, through this campaign, music that is so familiar to many people of my era will now be embraced by a whole new generation,” Ono says. “John’s music set out to inspire change, and in standing up for human rights, we really can make the world a better place.”
Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, adds, “We know music’s power to unite and inspire people. With hundreds of thousands dead, millions driven from their burned out villages and rape being used as a tactic in the Darfur conflict, the world needs a mass mobilization demanding action and justice. The Instant Karma campaign combines John Lennon’s passionate desire for us to imagine a more peaceful world with Amnesty International’s expertise in achieving justice. Instant Karma allows ordinary people to lend their hand in saving lives–a notion we think would make John proud.”
“John Lennon was not just a famous Beatle, he was the social conscience of his generation,” says Jeff Ayeroff, one of the album’s executive producers. “By reinterpreting his music and reintroducing it to a new generation, we shine a light on the darkness that is Darfur. Yoko Ono’s gift of John’s music to Amnesty International, whose work points out the pain and injustice in the world, is a true beacon of light. Give peace a chance is all we are saying.”
